Self Inflection and Syzygies
by browniechadowes
Summary: previously titled "Syzygy" Bella lets out her anger after Edward leaves, instead of bottling it in. Ultimately ExB. How will she cope with being forced to figure out who she really is? And how will Edward react to the changed Bella?
1. Exposed Jugulars and Moving Dressers

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Before anyone has the urge to say "Bless you" or "Gesundheit" to the title of the fanfic, here are a few definitions for ya:

**Syzygy (astronomical):** the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a straight line, such as a New Moon.

**Syzygy (psychological):** the conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.

This is my first serious fanfiction that is not affiliated with my past parodies, so be gentle! This fanfic is a reworking of sorts of what would have happened if Bella had let a little bit of her emotion out instead of keeping it bottled up after Edward left. It starts off after the first time Bella "hears" Edward's voice. I have an outline for quite many a chapter, so it'll be a long fanfic as long as everyone wants me to keep going.

This is overall a canon couple EdwardxBella story.

As a heads up, there will be no JacobxBella, Edward will come back eventually, we will see more of the Denali clan, Victoria and Laurent, and the Volturi, and very slight MikexBella (I know, but trust me, I have my reasons). I'm going to try to keep it T… although restraining my dirty mouth is going to be a tough one, lol. I guess Bella would be considered OOC, and just as a warning, the general plot is going to deviate from the books.

And for this chapter, I imagined Edward being a Death Cab fan… so I pictured the song that triggered Bella as being "I Will Follow You into the Dark". But feel free to insert what you like.

**I don't own Twilight, and I have the unpaid bills to prove it.**

* Exposed Jugulars and Moving Dressers *

"_You are so odd, Bella Swan. I feel like I don't know who you are."_

"_Sorry." I didn't know what else to say to that._

I scraped the excess salt off of a french fry I was about to stick in my mouth. I fidgeted nervously with the little grains peppering my container. I began to grow uncomfortably aware of the silence encompassing Jessica and me.

"So these fries, huh? I heard they switched the oil that they use…"

I tapered off my rambling as she stared at me as if I had an extra head protruding out of my neck. I quickly shoved the topic of failed conversation into my mouth and felt as it hit the back of my throat and settled uncomfortably into my empty stomach. I decided that the damage had been done for the night.

Jessica slammed her tray against the entrance to the trashcan, bringing it clattering over the top of the can as she pulled the door open. I hurried to catch up with her, grabbing my own tray and heading out into the bitter Port Angeles air. I was nearly running to catch up with her as she bolted to the parking lot where her car sat.

She was already buckled in and had the engine running, and my hand caught the door handle before she could drive away without me. She clicked her fingernails on the wheel impatiently as I sidled into the seat next to her, trying to shut the door as quietly as I could. I felt like the smallest motion would cause her to lash out at me.

I laid my head against the cool glass of Jessica's Jetta as she turned up the station to full blast. The night's events swam through my mind and I tried to sift through the emotions that were hitting my previously numb body with full force. The heart wrenching pierce of hope and greed at hearing _his_ voice again, the fear of actually hearing voices that weren't there at all, the guilt and worry of not being able to even get through one night with another peer without falling apart.

Jessica's hands turned the steering wheel sharply as her tires hit the gravel of the driveway. She let out a low breath as the final rifts faded from the song pulsing from the radio. As I caught the last few lines, my heart plunged into the bottom of my right foot.

My memory went into a sensory overload as I was transported back to the parking lot of Forks High, sitting with _him_ in his Volvo, marveling at his ranging taste in music. I felt the cold leather seat against my skin and the tentative tapping of his fingers on the dashboard, me humming monstrously along, hitting a plethora of flat notes along the way. I saw the right side of his mouth curl up as a small chuckle bubbled out of his chest.

As abruptly as I was thrown into the past, I was pulled straight back out as Jessica slammed down the button on the console, throwing the car into a blanket of silence.

She stared at the button as if she wanted to pulverize it. I had never thought of her as the type of person to like alternative music. Then again, I realized, I had never spent enough time with her to ask. My voice caught in my throat as I choked out,

"Thanks for going out with me, Jess."

"Sure," she stated tersely. Her forefinger and thumb pulled nervously on her sweatshirt string.

"I'm sorry about…" What was I sorry for? Feigning sick because I was so far gone I couldn't stand to see a happy couple anywhere near me? Leaving her alone on the side of the road while I chased after a person my own imagination had placed in front of me, unreachable? Barely being able to keep up a conversation because the thought of him was enough to turn my insides as stone cold as his own hands?

"everything. All of it. I'm so sorry." And before I knew it, I was breaking down. Breaking down and cracking up in the last place I ever thought I would… the passenger seat of Jessica Stanley's car. Raw and vulnerable. Perfect. I had just offered up my jugular on a silver platter for her to attack.

"Bella," she turned a little more to face me, still fidgeting with her shirt, "I've gotta go. But call me tomorrow, 'kay? We'll… talk."

My head jerked up to look at her. And I saw it in her eyes, slightly hidden around her scrunched up nose. Pity.

I flicked away the tears that had welled up past my eyelids and nodded my head a little as I grasped for the car handle and stumbled blearily across my front lawn. I cracked open the front door and attempted to walk as silently as possible up to my bedroom. I made it to the second step when my sneaker caught, and the sound of my hand on the wall made a slight smacking sound, causing Charlie's head to twist away from the television.

"Bella, where have you been?"

I attempted to eek out a response without breaking the dam that I had built to keep in the flood of tears I knew were on the verge of spilling over.

"Movie with Jessica. Really tired. Night dad."

And before I could wait for a response from him, I resumed my trek up the stairs and into my bedroom. I pressed my back tightly to the door, as my breathing sped up in deep gasps. And all of the emotions that had been lying dormant in me for all of these months combined into one, spilling out into a hot torrent of anger.

"It will be as though I never existed!?!" I allowed myself to scream, not really caring whether Charlie came in to check on me or not.

"As though I never existed!?!" I shrilled again, my voice oscillating between a bark and a laugh. I was furious. Enraged. I had never felt this much fury in my whole life: Not when Renee decided to marry Phil. Not when I made the decision to move to Forks. Not when _he_ looked at me with those piercing eyes the first day I met him.

And then everything came crashing down. I _was_ angry at the fact that Renee had taken to Phil, because it put him in the same position I was in now. She had left someone she had loved before, and she could do it again. I was angry that I had convinced myself to move away from the warmth and comfort of the home I had known for years to benefit the so-called adults in my life.

I was angry that I had sat down next to him. Angry that he had saved me from Tyler's van. Angry that he saved me again in Port Angeles. Angry that he took James' venom from my veins. Angry that he could mold to my life, claim it as his own, and then break away so easily.

My face burned with a new, unfamiliar blush of temper as I rearranged everything in my room, cursing under my breath, laboring out each burst of anger with a pull on a dresser or a shove on a desk. Sweating and out of air, I sank onto my bed, staring in triumph and sadness at the dresser that now covered the lone window in my room.

My hand grasped the light switch as I moved it down, flinging the covers off of my bed and tucking myself back into them. I didn't bother to change out of my clothing. Then they hit; a furious torrent of smells and sights and touches. He was all over my body, all over my mind. And snippets of our conversations would pop out, shouting at me. I sighed, squinting my eyes, and taking in each blow as the past flogged me.

"_Are you sure you won't vanish in the morning? You are mythical, after all."_

"_I won't leave you." _

The dagger in my stomach twisted ever so slightly as I began to take in every word he had said to me wondering if he had known the ultimate ending of our relationship. Maybe he had known all along. Alice must have seen it.

And although each of my thoughts were wrapped up in him, in vivid memories flying across my eyes, my mind kept repeating what Jessica had shouted at me earlier,

"_I feel like I don't know who you are."_

One up on you, Jessica. I haven't a clue, either.


	2. Disgruntled Pandas and Sporadic Giggles

**~*~ Disgruntled Pandas and Sporadic Giggles~*~**

"Bella, come here a second. I want to talk to you."

Charlie's tone had a harsh under bite to it. My nerves bounced around as I thought back to his words the previous morning.

"Ya, Dad, what's up?" I sidled into the chair. I rubbed my eyes briefly. Last night had not been kind to my tear ducts and I'm sure I had to look like a disgruntled puffy panda.

His eyes bored a hole into the back of my head. "I talked to Renee last night."

"Oh." The nerves were smacked down by pure fear. As much as I had vented to myself about leaving Phoenix last night, I knew I wouldn't be able to let go of Forks now. Not after everything that had happened.

"Bella, you don't come home until 10:30 last night, run up to your room without hardly one word to me, no real explanation, and then you scream your heart out…" his voice tapered off as his words seemed to catch in his throat.

I pressed my thumb into the wooden groove of the table, not wanted to look him in the eyes. I heard him take a deep breath, and I braced myself for the worst.

"I know we talked about it yesterday, but I feel like what I said went in one ear and out the other. Your mother and I both think that it would be best if you-"

"Dad," I interrupted, "I am staying here. I am not just going to pack up and leave." I forced my eyes to look up at him, hoping that my seriousness would be taken clearly.

"Honey, if you're going to stay here, you're going to have to work on some things. Work on what's bothering you. I set up an appointment for you on Wednesday in Port Angeles with Dr. Blomquest."

I opened my mouth to protest, but was swiftly cut off.

"It's either that or a ticket back to Phoenix." Our identical eyes stared at one another, and I wondered how long it would take someone with a Masters degree in psychology to have me committed.

"Bella, honey, I'm serious now. You need to let people help you, kid. Please."

That was it. The same look of pity that had flashed over Jessica's eyes last night was embedded in every facet of Charlie's face. My stomach felt as if it were plummeting down a rollercoaster as I forced myself to speak.

"Okay," I muttered. "I'll give it a try."

Charlie reached into his pocket and handed me a piece of paper with the doctor's number and address written down on it in his tidy scrawl. I left it sitting at the table, avoiding it like the plague.

"And Bells?" his voice called as I reached for the door handle, readying myself to face a day at work. I paused and looked over my shoulder.

"I love you."

I hurried out the door before my tear ducts could pull an all out revolt over me.

******************************************************************

I arrived at Newton's thirty minutes early. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Pulling the lever on my truck's seat to incline it, I cupped my hands behind my head and tried to take some deep calming breaths. I seriously had no idea what a shrink could do to help my situation.

I entertained myself with the thought of coming completely clean with someone about _him_.

"Well, Dr. Blomquest, you see, I was dating a vampire which has its complications as it is. But everything was going fine until his bloodthirsty brother tried to eat me on my birthday."

I snorted out through my stuffy nose as I pictured the look on the psychologist's face. The rubber restraints would be on me in two minutes, tops. I wasn't sure that I would be comfortable with the situation even if said situation had been normal. Charlie should understand this. I don't talk to people about stuff like this, especially not strangers with a cassette tape and a note pad.

I had resolved to coast along for a few sessions until Charlie and Renee calmed down. Then I could taper off and get back to…

"Get back to what, Bella?" I asked myself in the rear view mirror. I had nothing to get back to. I was overcome with inadequacy. I had been consumed with taking care of Renee when I lived in Phoenix. I had made her my full time job.

"_Bella, why don't you go out with those girls I saw you talking with last week at the parent's meeting?" _The memory of Renee's voice permeated my brain.

"_Mom, that's okay. I'd rather just stay here. You know, make some dinner. Maybe we can put in a movie or something?"_

"_Alright. I just don't like to think of you cooped up in here all the time. Oh, I bought the new apocalypse movie that came out around a month ago. We could pop that in and I can get out the nail polish…"_

And I had convinced myself that I wanted to stay home so that she wasn't stuck in the house, all alone. That she might burn down the kitchen in an attempt to make some exotic curry she had read about in one of her many random magazine subscriptions, or attempt to paint her right nails with her left hand again… That she would be bored and fidgety the whole time I was gone.

After being able to push out honesty last night, however, my thoughts focused around the real reason for my preoccupation with Renee. I hated action movies, and I hated manicures, but that trumped being terrified of spending a few hours around people I hardly knew.

And then in Forks, Charlie had seemed to need me as much as Renee in the cooking department… and then _he_ had been there, consuming my every thought.

Get back to what? I was slowly realizing that in my life, I had been avoiding having anything to get back to.

"Huh." I breathed out. There were no other words. I tried to rub my eyes clear of the residue that last night had caused to crumble around the edges, but the only thing that accomplished was to make my sensitive skin bubble into a brilliant pink color. Wonderful.

With a sigh, I opened the door to my truck, threw my vest over my shoulders, and walked into Newton's, plastering a grin on my face.

*********************************************************************

"Bella, why don't you take off," Mike shot nonchalantly to me as he place a few more canteens onto the display table.

I wondered how long it had taken him to stop his futile attempts to get a reaction out of me. It scared me that I didn't know. Maybe he was back together with Jessica.

Oh crap. Jessica.

I was supposed to call…

"Erm, okay, if that's alright with you. Do you mind if I borrow your cell phone before I go?"

He reached into his pocket, not taking his eyes off of the inventory guide that he had propped up beside the display. I grabbed at the phone and flicked through the phone. No Jessica.

"Uh, Mike? Do you have Jessica's number?"

He stared at me, and my hand voluntarily shot up to my neck… making sure that I truly hadn't sprouted the second head that Jessica had seemed to have spotted last night. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline, which was quickly entangled into a slight grimace.

He made an indistinguishable sound, "Eh, it's… ah… listed under 'Do not pick up'". His face flushed, and I let out a sporadic giggle.

Mike looked as if I had flashed him.

I guess I hadn't laughed in a while.

I scrolled back up and pushed the button. After two rings I was met with a sharp, high pitched noise,

"Hey, so you finally decided to call. Not that I was waiting around or anything… oh wait, I was. Ya, Mike, newsflash, this town is, like, pretty small so you can only come up with so many excuses for not answering when I call you, and I've really had it up to-"

I tried desperately to get a word in, "Umm, Jessica? It's Bella. Sorry, I'm at work and had to borrow Mike's cell phone."

Silence. Dark, dark silence.

"So, uh, I was just calling…" I honestly didn't know what to say.

There was a slight breath over the phone. She sounded as if she were trying to clear the malice out of her voice. "Oh, okay. Sure. Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my house tonight. Talk if you want to?"

I had to physically close my jaw back with my hand. I did not think that Jessica would want to have anything to do with me after the Port Angeles fiasco. But if I was going to try to push myself out of the box that had become so comfortable, I would have to make it through another night.

"Sure," I gulped, "That sounds like a good idea. I'll be over in a few minutes."

"Do you know where I live?" I could almost see her eyebrow raising over the phone.

"Oh. Uh, no."

She proceeded to give me directions, which really only encompassed giving me the street name that her house was on and the color of her mailbox. Forks was not hard to get around in.

"Now, give the phone back to Mike."

I gave Mike a panicked look, as he finished talking to two men that had been rambling on about some giant bear. I quickly placed the phone in his hand.

"Umm, Jessica wants to talk to you."

Mike looked as if someone had both kneed him forcefully and killed his favorite puppy simultaneously. I wanted to laugh and apologize at the same time. For the past two days, my emotions had been hitting me back and forth like a volleyball match, and it was starting to grate on my sanity.

Watching Mike take hit after hit of Jessica's verbal abuse, my mind firmly grasped what I had just agreed to. Me and Jessica. Alone. Talking about issues. I wondered if I had truly lost my mind.

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

For anyone who's reading or reviewing (reviews are tasty and make me happy) I really would like to know if I'm going too OOC with anyone. Please feel free to tell me if not… or if so.


	3. Making Hamburgers and Punching Plastic

**~*~ Making Hamburgers and Punching Plastic ~*~**

I bounced slightly, fidgeting up and down sitting Indian style on the bright pink comforter. Harsh green and purple daisies stared back at me. I was growing aware of the uncomfortable silence that was starting to weave between Jessica and myself.

I had arrived in front of the bright blue mailbox a few minutes after I had gotten off the phone. However, it took me another good ten minutes to muster up the courage to trudge up to her front door and ring the bell.

Jessica had invited me into her room for "girl talk", and I have to admit that I braced myself for verbal abuse the second I sat down on her bed. Luckily for me, I had dialed her number on Mike's phone, and he had been permeating the conversation for a good thirty minutes.

"So," Jessica took a slight breath after waiting for my glossed over eyes to make contact with her slanted blue ones, "I guess I haven't gotten over Mike. Well, not really at all."

"Mmm," was all I could manage to get out of my mouth, thinking back to Mike's panicked face in the shop just an hour previously.

Jessica started to pull at a rogue string on her bedspread, making one of the daisy's petals pucker as if being strangled.

"Bella, are you going to talk to me?"

I thought I had been faring rather well. At least I was maintaining better conversation than last night.

"I don't know what you mean, Jess."

She yanked on the thread she had been pulling, causing a snapping noise to hit the air like a miniature whip. I briefly wondered if she was planning on using it as a torture device.

"Well, I'm really upset, obviously."

"I'm sorry?" I knew that I hadn't been the most attentive person yesterday, and that she probably was catching on to what a nutcase I had become, but for the life of me could not figure out what I had done to make her so hostile.

"Seriously, Bella, do you need me to spell it out for you?"

All I could do was wrack through my mind to try to remember something, anything, I might have done to make Jessica react this way.

"I guess so. Sorry." I mumbled. Brilliant.

She sighed, and a line formed between her eyebrows as she stared unwavering at me.

"I thought we were friends, alright? There aren't that many girls in Forks, and when you came I thought we got along okay and everything, but then you got all absorbed with Edward and… and well, okay, I get that Bella. I've had boyfriends before."

The name sliced through me, tingling my senses like a hot bath after a day out in the cold. Stinging, burning, a pain that I knew would dull eventually, but for the time being felt like pure agony.

My eyes welled up with tears, and I focused solely on trying not to hyperventilate. I wasn't sure that Jessica would appreciate me passing out on her bed.

Her voice, growing ever louder, continued on its course. I pushed the thought of _him_ into the back of my mind. I knew that the memories would come crashing through if I allowed my brain to peek into the room full of him that I had tried to keep locked and tucked away.

"But then he leaves, and I kept thinking you would come and talk to me about it. I mean, Mike and I broke up right after the Cullens left, you know? I thought we could kind of talk about it together. But you just ignored me any time I tried to talk to you. And then out of the blue you ask me to go to Port Angeles, so I'm thinking,

'Alright, maybe she'll talk to me about Edward and whatever the hell's bothering her now'

but no. You leave for over half the movie, try to get into a bar, and break down crying in my car. I'm sorry Bella, I really like you, I do. But you've been acting like a frigid bitch."

Her last words hit me. Hard. _She_ thought _I _was a bitch. I let out an involuntary snort of laughter as I realized that she perceived me in the same way I perceived someone like Lauren Mallory. Cold. Self-absorbed. Bitch.

"I really don't think it's all that funny." She said, and her voice suddenly went from harsh to tentative in a millisecond. She began to twist the small string around her pinky finger, cutting off the circulation and making it turn purplish-red.

"No, Jess. I just didn't realize that's how you saw me. And I really didn't know that you were feeling that way. It's just, when Ed- when the Cullens moved away, I shut down. I wasn't really thinking about anything. I don't know how else to explain it."

And I didn't. It scared me to death that I could barely grasp even minor details of the past few months. I couldn't put into words how I had been feeling, let alone wonder about how anyone else had been.

"You think I haven't been there? That I don't really know what you're talking about?"

Honestly, no. I did not. My relationship had not been a teenage romance, a novel way of passing the time before college. It was going to last forever. I thought that I had found the person that would be with me always. But I felt like Jessica was going to snap at any moment, so I decided it would be best not to mention my feelings on the matter. So I didn't say a word.

"I do." She filled in the silence. "Have you even thought about what I might be going through? I mean, at least Edward and his whole family left Forks. You don't have to see him every day, sit next to him at lunch, watch him drool over other girls. Have his phone number light up your screen, just to have it slapped back in your face that he didn't want to call you."

And at that second, I was able to take myself out of the deep pit I had dug when _he_ left me in the woods and feel sincerely empathetic towards another person's pain. Jessica just looked so defeated.

If _he_ had stayed, I don't know what I would have done. Having to patch myself up and look at him moving on, showing interest in other girls. And I thought it was hard enough to escape the hurt with him leaving no trace of himself.

I shuddered to think of what I would be like if he was in front of me every day, forbidden to have, dangling right in front of my face. It would have been impossible to do.

"Jess. Look, Jess, I am really sorry. I know I haven't been acting the best. But I don't do situations like this very well at all. I just… I don't know what to do. Ever. And I should have been there when you and Mike-"

She held up a finger to me, and her eyes looked resolved.

"Really, Bella, I'm going to get over him. Yeah, I'm sure it didn't really sound like it today, but it gets easier to deal with as long as he's not being thrust in my face. Besides, Lauren's been telling me to get over him before we even broke it off… I just wanted to make sure, well, that you're okay."

I shrugged my shoulders. My soul was screaming that I was anything but okay. My heart had gone through a meat grinder, and I didn't know if the pieces would ever be put back together. I told Jessica this.

"Well," Jessica said, giving a tight-lipped smile, "you can either throw all the ground meat out, or you can make hamburgers."

"That is probably one of the grossest things I've ever heard you say." I stated back bluntly.

And then she laughed.

And I laughed.

And the rainbow daisies jumped up and down around our convulsing bodies.

And, for the first time since _he_ left, I felt like a piece of the load that I currently harbored on my back had been taken off.

********************************************************************

My good-natured mood lasted exactly fifteen seconds after I had seated myself back into the driver's seat of my truck. Rain started to sputter out of the sky, and my head swam, trying to grasp the concept of my newfound friendship with someone who I thought was quite likely to scalp me just the night before.

But she had said _his_ name. She had been the first to do so to me. And it had thrown knives at me, chopping at places I didn't know existed.

And as much as I appreciated what Jessica had done for me, how much she had probably worried about my state of mind when I couldn't even register that she was hurting as well, the two-syllabled name was the only thing reverberating through my skull.

His icy touch tracing lazy circles against my back. His soft humming voice encompassing me at night, vibrating in his chest as I listened to the sound. The way his eyes laughed at me every time the right side of his mouth curled up into a crooked smile.

I realized that I envied Jessica for her situation. I envied the fact that she was able to hurt everyday at seeing Mike, that she didn't have to doubt her cut. It could scab over and heal. Because she knew he was real. She knew it was over. And she knew she could move on.

I was forcing myself to keep re-piercing my wound, just to make sure it was still there.

I didn't have anything tangible. Half of the time I woke up wondering if the whole thing had been a dream. His supernatural issue only helped to exacerbate my situation. It was hard to convince myself I had been living in reality when the love that had left was over eighty years older than me and preferred a mountain lion's blood over pizza.

And I was quite sure I could not divulge that to anyone, Jessica included.

Which is why I sat in my driveway, left hand clutching the steering wheel, as my eyes raked over the hole where the radio that Emmett installed had been. He was like a brother to me, and I realized how much I missed him, too.

Before I knew what had come over me, my right fist was pummeling into the hole in the dashboard, my knuckles making tiny slapping noises against the cold plastic.

Punch.

And Alice had been the only girl I had ever been able to really connect with before. She had been my best friend. And she had seen all of this coming.

Punch.

And as much as I didn't blame Jasper, I was angry at the situation that had been an obvious catalyst for him to leave. It had been my blood spilt, but his bloodlust.

Punch.

And Carlisle, who had mended my bones and taken glass out of my flesh. And Esme, who was a mother figure I was allowing myself to have.

Punch.

And even Rosalie. My anger bubbled at the victorious face I could picture her sporting, as the Cullens left their contrived life in the small town to get away from the inconvenient human.

Punch.

They all left me. Without a goodbye. Without an explanation. Just because it had been a _clean break_ didn't mean the actions breaking it hadn't hurt just as much.

Punch.

Without closure, they hurt even more.


	4. Linty Fruit Loops and FenseWords

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Okay, this one's a small chapter. I just needed this to go down, and I had a severe case of insomnia, so consider this a small bonus, not a real chapter… because I'll be updating later today with a full-fledged chapter as well.

And for anyone worrying that this story will become high school teen angst, rest assured, it won't… but this is Bella's life so far sans the Cullen factor. So patience!

And for all those lurkers out there, press that review button… you know you want to. And it will make me all gooey with happiness… constructive criticism included.

I don't own Twilight, just a nerdy pen light…

**~*~ Linty Fruit Loops and Fense-Words~*~**

"Ugh, can you figure out the answer to number eight? I seriously don't get the whole point of _i_ anyway… I think it's a cop-out for all the math geniuses for their mistakes at making the square root of a negative number damn imaginary. Math's supposed to be freaking black and white."

Jessica humphed over her Calculus book, and the pit of nerves that had been gnawing at my stomach loosened considerably. I wasn't sure how things would be after our girl's bonding session over the weekend.

"Yeah, here, you just missed this step-"and I proceeded to show her how to re-work the problem. I may have been in a comatose state, but it had seemed to leave a lot of room in my brain for math equations.

I had begun to realize how removed I had become at Forks High. None of my teachers even batted an eye towards me, which was a blessing when it came to Physics, but otherwise was an hourly reminder of how far I'd let myself go.

And as the severity of my depression was brought to my attention so frequently, I had been re-evaluating my hesitancy towards Charlie and Renee's suggestion.

The piece of paper Charlie had given to me stayed diligently unmoved on the kitchen table until late Sunday night after the weekend was almost over. I reluctantly picked it up, only because every time I ate, it seemed to stare up at me with an ominous glare.

I had spent the rest of the weekend finishing up chores around the house that had gone gravely neglected. I spent my Sunday gutting out the dryer of lint which was laced with a mysterious multi-colored grainy powder, reacquainting myself with the pantry as it had last been stocked by Charlie for the past few months (it consisted mainly of beer nuts, chips, pre-packaged meals, and Fruit Loops… which vaguely explained the residue on the lint), made a list of groceries to go pick up due to the pantry inventory, and tackled the mess that was my room.

All while evaluating my right fist and hoping that no bones were broken. I couldn't go to the hospital to have it checked out. I'm sure if Charlie saw it, he would sidestep the shrink and send me right back to Phoenix.

The plastic had left small indentations on a few of my knuckles, which were slightly red. But I could move all of my fingers, and the fact that even with all of my strength behind it, I didn't cause more damage than slight external abrasions, made me feel somewhat better.

"See?" I huffed to myself, making a fist in front of the mirror, "I'm not _that _breakable."

The new unbreakable me found myself trying to get through a day at Forks High, thawed out from my months' long hiatus of nothingness.

"Alright, I can accept it, but I swear, if Mr. Jones says one more word to me about the magical properties of _i_, I think I'm going to shove _i_ right up his greasy a-"

"Jess, I've been looking all over for you." A voice cut off Jessica's ranting as we were making our way to the cafeteria. A voice that, if I hadn't had an encounter with James last year, would be hands-down the most terrifying sound in existence.

"Lauren! I've been wanting to catch you, too. I need to talk to you." Jessica's voice faltered as she saw where Lauren's eyes had trained; right on my forehead. She looked as if she had stepped in something rather nasty.

I tried to look anywhere but into her steely eyes. I felt like an ostrich, hiding my head in the sand from a predator.

Jessica looked from Lauren to me, and then back again, playing ping pong with her own eyes. "Hey, come with me a sec, okay? Bella, we'll be at the table in a few."

And before I could get out a reply, Jessica was pulling Lauren by the arm down the hallway in the opposite direction of the cafeteria.

I kept my eyes trained on my shoes as I made my way to my usual lunch table, tray in hand. There were three empty seats. Two in between Angela and Conner, and one on the left side of Mike. I slid in next to Mike for two reasons. I didn't want to have to sit through an outburst between Mike and Jessica, and I really had been listening when Jessica talked about how hard it was to sit near him.

"Ah, man, did you see the Falcons play last weekend? Brutal murder right there." Mike's only reaction to me sitting down had been to scoot his seat a little further away from me. He was engrossed in conversation with Connor.

"Hah, well Seattle Pacific has been cringe-worthy for the past few years. No surprises there."

I turned my attention to the rest of the table. Angela was slowly chewing on a ham sandwich, her focus completely on her chemistry book. Angela seemed so engrossed in her work that I didn't feel right disturbing her. Sports it was.

I felt like a complete idiot as I turned to Mike. "Oh, I think my dad was watching that one this weekend." I couldn't think of anything else to say, and it wasn't exactly a lie. If it was a pacific coast team and was being played on a weekend, I was pretty sure Charlie had seen it.

"Umm, cool. Yeah." Mike stuttered at me. Angela's head jerked up from her book, and Connor proceeded to choke on a chip he had just put in his mouth.

Zombie Bella has returned from the dead.

"Yeah, so, do you think they're going to get any better?" It was easy to feign a sports conversation. I had done it many times when Renee suggested that Phil and I get to know each other better. The trick was to start them out on the topic.

Connor took a swig of water and the two began to explain to me details about offense and defense and every other fense-word imaginable. I nodded my head and tried to look engaged. Slowly the conversation switched direction and I began to pay attention again.

"So, I hear you were the cause of a little drama this weekend." Connor shot at me.

My heart thudded loudly in my chest. Out of habit, I tried to calm the beats down, trying to hide each telling pulse from _his_ hearing. No. I could not break down here. Not in front of everyone. I shoved the thought aside.

The pained look on my face was mistaken for guilt, and Mike smiled slightly.

"Don't sweat it, Bella. No big deal. It's not like I wouldn't have to talk to her at some point. Really didn't want to right then, though. Hah, it was so damn scary… and her tone was just-"

And the hurt I was trying to suppress not to think of _him_, and the anger that I had tried to let out on my car Saturday night, came crashing down on me in one fell swoop. It was as if I were in a dream. I was suddenly out of control of my actions, my voice working on its own accord.

"Yeah, well Mike, it's not really my problem. And I don't feel bad about giving the phone to you. It's rotten to ignore someone the way you've been ignoring her. Have you even told her you don't want her to call you?"

Mike looked as if I had slapped him in the face, "Well, no, but I mean, Bella, you know, we, um, you know, we, well, broke up and-"

"And what? That's it? Okay, if that's it then fine. But give her some fair warning and explain everything to her. Because it's just sadistic and twisted otherwise."

Before I knew it, my feet were carrying me away from the table. I had just yelled at Mike Newton… over Jessica. What universe had I dropped into? Walking back down the hallway I was contemplating the possibility of dimension travel as a hand touched my shoulder.

"Bella." The voice said, and I turned around to see an ashen-faced Mike. "I'm sorry. I don't know what that was about back there. Look I just-"

"No, you look. Alright," I took a deep, steadying breath. I had lashed out into crazy Bella enough for today. "I'm sorry I yelled at you and caused a scene and everything, but I think you need to have a talk with Jessica. I just… I know how it feels to be where she's at."

"Bella, she broke up with me. I really don't know what else I'm supposed to be doing."

What? That was information I had not expected. I didn't feel like Jessica had been lying to me. She was obviously torn up over the whole ordeal. Maybe she regretted putting a stop to the relationship.

"Oh." I was never very eloquent in situations like this.

"Yeah, so, I dunno. I'll talk to her, I will. But the last time that happened, I got a palm in the face, so…"

"Oh, okay. Sorry." I could feel the blush running across my face. I looked down at the backpack in my hands and flung it over my shoulders, attempting to amble my way into a classroom to hide away until the bell rang for the next period.

"Hey, Bella?" Mike's voice called from down the hallway.

I turned my head over my shoulder to look at him.

"Glad to have you back." He flashed a small smile and I made my way to the library.


	5. Unidentified Objects and Tidal Waves

**~*~Author's Note ~*~**

Hello, so like I promised, this chapter is up and going… and Bella is going to start some serious self-reconstruction. I would just like to thank everyone who's reviewed and put me on their story and/or author alert. Warm, fuzzy bunnies curling up in my heart about now.

**~*~ Unidentified Objects and Tidal Waves ~*~**

I pushed my foot down heavily on the antique gas pedal of my truck, touching my foot to the floor as I willed it to go as fast as it could. The speedometer currently hovered in between forty-five and fifty miles per hour. My right hand obsessively picked at the crease between the stick shift and the center console. I would be in Port Angeles in less than five minutes.

The past few days had been surprisingly calm compared to my outburst on Monday. I had hid in the library, sneaking through the halls into class and managing to arrive around thirty seconds late. Senora White raised her head briefly, then, seeing as it was me, resumed passing back quizzes. As soon as class had let out, I took the back door out of the school and made a fast walk to where my truck was parked.

Very consciously, I had been avoiding both Lauren and Jessica. I was pretty sure that Lauren wanted to barbecue my head on a skewer, and I wasn't sure how Jessica would react to the incident with Mike. Once again in the past few days, I was finding out how little I could predict my classmates' behavior.

"_You mind if I snag one of those from you?" Jessica had pointed to one of my unopened Twinkies, flashing a pearly smile my way._

"_Su-sure," I had stammered, handing her the crinkly package._

The whole table embraced me in conversation, Angela looking up from her private chats with Ben every once and a while to shoot me an assertive smile. Mike, Connor, and Jessica talked about nothing in particular, allowing me to hop in as I wished. Lauren even shot a furtive smile at me when I mentioned Tyler's prom blunder of last year… but it may have been a grimace.

But there had been no talk of my Monday moment of insanity, and Jessica had failed to mention what she had done to make Lauren attempt to reign in her blazing disdain for me.

Part of me was afraid to even ask.

So the next two days had gone: Helping Jessica with Calculus, bantering with everyone at the lunch table, pretending to get back into a routine of normalcy. I could blanket my hurt for a few hours as I would escape with the mundane workings of teenage academia as my outlet. However, my mind only let me suppress my thoughts until my head hit the pillow at the end of the day.

Nights were torture.

I would wake up shaking and sobbing, throat sore from screaming in my sleep. Although I had tried to block out the window from my line of sight, it was the first place my gaze grazed each time I woke up.

Most of me wished that I would awake to find a pile of splinters where my dresser used to be, _his_ voice chastising me for trying to keep him out, apologizing at the same time for his brash behavior. A small part of me hoped that the window would disappear altogether.

Both scenarios refused to play out, and so I was stuck in the purgatory of a sleep permeated with nightmares. Each one left me cold, alone, and staring at the dark pane of glass, having mistaken a branch sweeping against the clear plate for a tapping finger.

Renee had sent a long e-mail, of which I assumed was supposed to be pro "Bella should seek therapy" in nature, but, true to form, mainly ended up being a collection of ramblings from nudist communities in Florida to the UFO that was assumedly identified in Arizona last week.

At least I wasn't having to step on eggshells around her. I may have had to talk to Renee for hours about incessant meaningless problems, but she had never caught on enough to my moods to pry into my life when something significant was bothering me.

Charlie didn't pry, but he knew all the same. I could tell by the way he made sure my gas tank was full, to the way he would check up on me when he thought I had fallen asleep after another nightmare, to his futile attempt at making dinner. There had been an unidentified object, and it most certainly was not in Arizona.

A metal sign nestled in the dead ground read "Port Angeles Mental Health Facilities". I groaned deep in my chest, feeling even more of a nutcase, as my truck came to a screeching halt in the parking lot and I walked towards the wooden front doors.

******************************************************************************

"So, Isabella," Dr. Blomquest murmured almost to herself, looking down at her clipboard of medical information. I vaguely wondered if she had _all_ of my medical records on file. There were a fair few due to gravity waging a war on my feet, and I was worried about what might be implied.

"Bella." I stated a little harshly.

"Bella." She looked up from the records and her wrinkled skin cracked into a half-mooned smile, her spectacles hanging onto her button nose by a mere centimeter. She reminded me of what Mrs. Claus might look like. She was nothing that I had been expecting. It would be hard to keep my mental shield up with her looking at me like that. I just wanted to give her a cookie.

And, just as it had with Mike at work, the giggles began to bubble from my chest. What was wrong with me? My mood swings were getting even less predictable. I forced them down before she could write me off to the infirmary immediately. What resulted was in between a snort and a choking sound.

She lifted an eyebrow upward as she kept her pensive eyes locked on mine.

"So, is there anything you want to talk about, Bella?"

She waited patiently, her right leg dangling under her left.

"Not really." Not going to get anything out of me that easily. What was I supposed to talk to her about?

"Anything bothering you?"

I found the other half to my existence, he got bored with me, and left me in a town of three thousand people all alone in the cold, wet climate without even a chance to redeem myself. "Not really," I repeated.

"Okay," she gave a quick smile, shifted her shoulders, and looked me square in the face. "Tell me a bit about yourself."

I rambled on; all of the usual statistics. My grades and placement in school, living with Charlie, keeping in touch with Renee, having a good relationship with Phil, glossing over my lunch table to make the group fit into a picture perfect box of high school perfection.

"Bella, that's all well and good. But tell me a bit about _yourself._"

I blanched. I thought I just had.

"What makes Bella Swan tick? What makes her smile? What makes her think, 'Now, I am truly happy and content.'?"

_He_ does. _He_ did. Knowing him had been waking up excited every day just to get to hear his voice. Knowing him had been having a reason to truly live my life, not just trudge through it. Knowing him made me truly happy. And now, I was miserable, irate, and alone.

"No, Bella." I told myself in my head, "Don't you dare crack this early. Suck it up and just get this hour over with… only fifty minutes to go."

"I like to read. And I like cooking when I'm a little stressed out."

"That's getting somewhere. What do you like to read?"

"The classics, mainly. I'm a fan of Jane Austen in particular."

"They really can sooth on a hard day. And the cooking… what do you cook?"

"Usually dinner for me and Char- my dad."

She scribbled in a side note onto the clipboard in her hands, but she managed to keep eye contact at the same time. I had only ever seen one of _them _multitask like that. She was so… absorbed.

"And how often do you cook, would you say? My husband's lucky if he gets one meal out of me a week, but anything I stick in the oven usually burns to a crisp anyway…"

"Around every night." I answered before thinking. I had grown slightly comfortable with her soft demeanor and the comfortable armchair I was balled up into.

She continued to look at me, "And you cook when you're experiencing stress?"

"Not every time." I muttered. I didn't know why I felt caught, but I did. I loved cooking for other people, I really did. It made me feel as if I was contributing the best that I could. I had grown addicted to both Renee and Charlie's reactions to each new dish over the years. "Do I have to stop cooking?"

Dr. Blomquest's chest swelled and a small titter came from the top of her throat, "No, Bella, you do not have to stop cooking. We should, however, work on how much stress you are taking on your shoulders."

The problem was, I wasn't sure when I had placed any on my back in the first place. And I had no idea how to keep the panicked feeling from rising up out of me like a tidal wave, crashing to the shore and dragging pieces of my sanity back with it.

"Here," she handed me a dark blue spiral notebook, "Anytime you feel as if you are so full that something's going to spill out, write it down. It will help you to process what you're feeling, and it will stop feeling so overbearing or suffocating." She smiled down at me.

All I had told her was that I liked to cook. I took the notebook in shaking hands, looking at the dark cover that hid the front page. My color. His color. Another shaky gust caught my lungs and my breathing became hitched and irregular. My head swam with marble fingers and amber eyes and cool, fluttery breaths.

And with my head in my lap, I tumbled out of the chair and into blackness.


	6. Offensive Notebooks and Lost Music

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Okay, so my OCD has gotten the best of me. It's Spring Break at KU and… I really can't stop typing up new chapters.

And for all you lurkers out there (I know you're there, because over 300 people have read thus far) gimme some feedback. I can take the criticism. Yes, I have the plotline down, but knowing what you are and aren't loving helps me tailor it a bit.

And for those who have R&Red, you are my little love muffins (in a non-creepy sense… if that can be non-creepy).

P.S. This chapter's slightly depressing. It was completely necessary, but you have been forewarned.

**~*~Offensive Notebooks and Lost Music ~*~**

Two long weeks had gone by. I was supposed to have a meeting with Dr. Blomquest each Wednesday. The past two, I had waved goodbye to Charlie and driven to Port Angeles. I visited every bookstore I could find. I hid out in each family owned coffee shop. I avoided the cold metal sign and the woman who had rubbed salt on my wounds.

I had realized now why my subconscious had shut down, why I had allowed myself to become an unfeeling shell. Lying vulnerable and disarmed was disconcerting and painful. I never knew when someone else would strike.

Dr. Blomquest had a cold compress to my forehead by the time I was coming to. I was lying splay-legged on the short-haired gray carpet of her office.

"Look into my eyes, Bella."

I tried to focus on her pupils as her eyes darted between mine. She grabbed my wrist and seemed to take my blood pressure. Then she passed me a glass of water.

"Let me help you up onto the couch so you can lie down, and keep the washcloth on your forehead."

I staggered as she helped me reach for the couch on the opposite end of the room. I curled up into a ball, right hand grasping the cloth now dripping drops of cool water into my eyes, nose, and mouth, and I shut my eyes.

This was too much. Too real. Nothing that I could handle.

"Bella, I'm going to work on some paperwork at my desk. I think we've done quite enough for today. Take steady breaths, and tell me if you feel faint again."

I tried in vain to nod my head.

I had huddled in a ball on the monstrously paisley-decked couch, breathing in deep, labored breaths. The cushions smelled of dust and fabric cleaner. I dipped my toes in and out of the pool of consciousness, as I tried to block everything, and anything, that had to do with _him_. I hadn't expected it to be this hard, this frustratingly out of my control.

The clock struck eight, and I feebly rocked onto my feet and picked up my backpack, ready to head back to Forks.

"Bella, are you alright to drive?"

I nodded my head. I expected a fight.

But without another word, she handed me the offensive notebook with a resilient look in her eyes.

I took it from her hands. Not wanting to see, I shoved it into the depths of my pack, flung the handle over my shoulder, and made my way out of the door.

My nightmares got worse. The dark blue notebook joined the radio that was stashed in the trash bag inside my closet.

And I pretended with a harsh face of happiness to everyone at school and to Charlie at home that I was, in fact, perfectly fine.

And Jessica seemed to be happy that I was at least communicating with her.

And Mike seemed completely blissful.

And Angela kept sending me slight encouraging smiles.

And Lauren was ever so slightly less intimidating.

But no matter how much I tried to pretend, and was grateful that at least I was feeling some sort of emotion, I needed more. I needed to truly feel the pain that I was going through.

I decided that this Wednesday would be different. I was not going to drive to Port Angeles. I needed tangible evidence that what I had experienced wasn't just a figment of my imagination. I was making my way to the abandoned Cullen's house.

******************************************************************************

Through the underbrush and the overgrown weeds, I was able to maneuver my way into the Cullen driveway. The house stood exactly as it had the fateful day of my eighteenth birthday. My truck gave a slight wheeze as I shut off the engine and placed my hand on the lever to open the door.

I knew I should go back. Every logical sense of my mind was screaming at me not to open things that need not be opened. But then Jessica's face came to mind. She was faring well, being inoculated with small doses of Mike. And even though I felt their relationship had been rather superficial, I also felt as if I deserved some sort of closure as well.

I sprinted up the front steps to the door that I had grown so accustomed to. I yanked hard on the handle, but I hadn't expected it to be open. This was the moment that the police chief's daughter became a felon. Breaking and entering.

I took the small tire kit from the back of my truck which Charlie had insisted on me keeping with me at all times. Scrounging through the alien pieces of metal, I found a wrench, and marched back to the open windows of the first floor of the house.

Whoop. Smack.

Whoop. Crack.

Whoop. Shatter.

The window came down before me like a waterfall, and I stepped cautiously over the spilt glass as I stepped into the foyer that I had walked down countless times before.

The smell of dust mingled with the residue of dirt struck my nostrils. The irony shook through my bones, as I realized that the house felt more like a crypt now than it ever had when inhabited by seven vampires.

I could see the sitting room from the place that I had entered the house from. This is where I had cut myself. This is where Jasper had lunged at me. This is where the end began.

My wet sneakers squeaked against the hard wood flooring, and my hand slid up the handrail as I made my way up to the second story. Each creak of a stair threatened to throw my spontaneity out of the window I had just finagled my way through. But I kept going, willing each foot in front of the other.

I made my way past Alice's room, and I stood in front of his door. My right hand shook, vibrating of its own accord, as I slid my hand down to the cold handle. My heart pounded with every breath and my sweaty palms slipped on the round metal piece of the doorknob.

My toes peeked into the room first, my head angled down at the gold carpet surrounding my shoes. I was immediately hit with his scent, his delectably intangible scent. I forced my eyes to look upward, as I scanned the room where he had lived.

All of his music was gone.

I ran, tripping slightly on the carpet, to his closet, flinging the doors open. In it hung one beige pullover. Nothing more, nothing less. I grabbed greedily at the garment, stripping it from its hanger and enveloping it into my face. Blindly pacing backwards, I tipped into his leather couch, clinging to the soft fabric as if my life depended on it.

I smelled all of him. I felt his arms curl around mine. Felt his fingertips lightly caress my neck. Felt his breath tickle the hairs on my forehead. Felt his stone lips against mine.

And I knew if I broke down in his room, on his couch, I would not be able to get up. I would simply waste away waiting for him to return.

"Would that be so bad?" a small voice in my head asked. I didn't know how to answer myself. As I began to settle into the aged leather, my flight instinct kicked into high gear, and, still clutching the piece of fabric in my arms, I ran back down the stairs. I may not be able to forget him, but I was also unable to be surrounded by so much of him at one time.

As my foot touched the last step, the black glossy piano caught my left eye, and my head turned slowly towards the ivory keys. They shone like his skin in the sunlight, taunting me with a lullaby that I would never hear again. Part of me wanted to touch the instrument, while the other part couldn't stand to mar the memory of him playing for me.

His humming voice attacked my eardrums, each melodically major spin dipping along with a minor glissade. I took two steps near the piano, and then started at my own addiction.

This wasn't right. This didn't feel sane.

I stepped back over the broken glass and made my way back to my truck. The pullover occupied the passenger seat.

That night, getting ready for bed, I slid my closet open to find a clean pair of sweatpants. I eyed the trash bag that haunted me each time I dared slide the door open. With bated breath, I opened the tie and fished out the dark blue notebook.

Placing it on my end table, I slid on the sweatpants and the shirt I had taken from his closet. Immediately engulfed with his scent, I slid into bed and reached over to my left.

I wrote all night, not bothered with the nuisance of sleep.


	7. Little Triggers and Winking Hours

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Thanks so much for the reviews, and to those who saw, I deleted the last AN… thanks for your support (I was just feeling a teensy bit vulnerable… and had one too many margaritas…). Oh, and just a thought to chew on, that pullover didn't stay put by accident ;)

This one's short… but shit is going to start hitting the fan in the next chapter. Watch out. (Is that Edward I see on the horizon?)

**~*~ Little Triggers and Winking Hours~*~**

"Earth to Bella." Jessica's slightly perturbed voice snapped me back into reality as my right hand stopped looping over and across my notebook page.

A few weeks had gone by since my break-in at the Cullen house. I couldn't make myself venture back to Dr. Blomquest's office after missing three consecutive meetings.

My Wednesdays and most of my nights were spent blackening pages with the strokes of my pen. The first night I had written until my fingers grew numb, my eyes started to tire, and dawn's morning light licked the edge of my bed.

I wrote about every little piece of nothing that would come into my head. From counting my freckles to trying to describe the taste of peanut butter, my hand was able to do what my mind couldn't: it strayed far away from any whisper of _him_.

Although I was a living display of irony. I was still wearing his pullover.

Yet it seemed to be working. Each time I felt as if I were going to crumble, I would reach for the spiral. Connor had been talking about sports with Mike, and when I zoned in and listened, Connor had stated,

"Eh, I mean Chicago's alright, but the Bears haven't been top notch in a little while."

My logic shook its head in disappointment at how small of a comment threatened to shake me. Little triggers squirmed their way past my defenses every single day. And instead of screaming at Mike again, or bursting into tears for all to see, I wrote.

I had been nearing the third line of a recipe when Jessica had caught my attention.

"Sorry, Jess," I said with a smile. "Essay." I had found that the more teeth bore in Jessica's direction, the happier she seemed to be.

"Jeez, Bella, come on. Lighten up a bit. It's Friday, you know. Well I was just saying how I'm getting some people over tomorrow. My mom and dad are driving down to California for their anniversary."

Lauren looked over at me. "Just don't go saying anything to officer dad about it. I do _not _need an MIP, thank you very much." She crossed her arms across her chest. That had actually been pretty restrained for her. I had seen how Lauren could get when tested. I had no desire to have her lash out on me.

"I dunno. If it's going to be a problem if I come-"

"No! It's fine. Come on, Bella, we never get to see you outside of the school." Mike's hopeful eyes flashed with anticipation.

"You do, Mike. I work with you around every other day. And I'm not sure this is my type of deal."

"Well, I'm so sorry we are beneath the great and wonderful Bella Swan." Lauren rolled her eyes, picked up her tray, and stalked away from the table. Oh no. That had come out all wrong.

"I didn't mean it like that." I said quietly, addressing my statement to Jessica.

"It's alright. She's probably just majorly PMSing. I'm going to make sure she doesn't need anything…You're going to come, though, right?" She waited expectantly for my answer, hovering between sitting and standing.

A night of drunken teenagers unsupervised with the police chief's daughter. That scenario made me nervous to no end. "I don't really think-"

"Good. Be at my house at nine on Saturday." She smacked her hand down on the table, winked at me, and then walked swiftly out of the cafeteria, following Lauren's trail.

****************************************************************

Saturday afternoon and come and gone in a blur of stain-proof tents and hiking boots. The store had been unusually busy due to the impending spring season. However, any time Mike got the chance, he would whiz by me spouting off something about Jessica's party.

"Are you still coming?" and "So is that a maybe, as in you're probably going to come, or maybe as in, not really going to come?" and "I can pick you up if you need a ride." and "This is going to be so much fun, the last time we all hung out at Jessica's…" I had tuned him out after around an hour of winks, grins, and air fist-pumping.

I had been surprised that he was invited at all, what with Jessica's prior fury towards him. I was beginning to notice that Jessica, whether subconsciously or with her own knowledge, would go to any lengths just to be in the general vicinity of Mike. This tended to annoy Lauren.

It had begun to annoy me, too. I desperately wanted the control, the option, to see _him_ again.

I sighed as I stared at the clock.

"You can go ahead and leave… ya know, get prepped up for Lauren's."

"Mmmm," was all that escaped my mouth.

"You are coming, right?"

This was the fifth time he had asked me. I stared at him pointedly.

"Because you can't get away that easily, Swan. I'll have you know kidnapping isn't beyond me."

He beamed up and me, and I let out a little sigh. I wasn't sure that he was capable of kidnapping, but he probably wouldn't be opposed to stopping my house and trying to convince me to go.

So, with complete trepidation and deep-set frustration, I said lowly. "Fine. But only because I don't want Charlie to kill you after you've carried me off."


	8. Bobblehead Toys and Nacho Nail Polish

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Hmmm, so this chapter took a bit of work. Not pleasant, and it's going to have some retributions. And as an update, spring break is over so it's back to the academic world for me. I'm going to try to update two days a week, but we'll see how it goes.

And thanks so much to everyone that has taken the time to give my fic a chance. I love reviews… even if it's just a few words.

******************************************************************

**~*~ Bobble-head Toys and Nacho Nail Polish~*~**

"I miss Alice," my reflection exclaimed back at me in the small bathroom mirror. I was pale, more ashen then usual, half-naked, with most of my wardrobe lying strewn across the tiled floor.

I had no idea what I was going to put on my body, and was shocked at the fact that I cared. I needed an extra dose of confidence in order to get through the night, and being completely oblivious to the right attire, as well as being at the edge of Lauren's verbal dagger, had left me sweating with cold anticipation.

Never had I thought the day would come when I would miss the pulling, dragging, and surreal torture that came with the packaged deal of Alice's "dress-up Bella" endeavors. But, if I were to be honest with myself, I think I missed the comfort and reassurance of a true friend more than the promised avoidance of a fashion faux-pas.

My head hit the cool porcelain of the toilet as the beating of my heart seemed to pound through my head, back down to my stomach, and up again. I was both thanking and cursing myself for not partaking in the lasagna I had made for dinner.

Vomit-induced Italian food was not ideal. However, dry heaving was rather unpleasant as well.

I wiped the spit that had gathered from my drooling mouth off of my chin, splashed cold water on my face, and attempted to calm my shaking hands by picking up most of my discarded clothes.

A tentative knock came from downstairs.

"Bella, there's someone here for you." Charlie's voice sounded slightly bemused.

Oh, please no.

"Bella?!?" He yelled again.

"Coming!" My voice shook, still weak with nerves and nausea. My incredulously wide eyes looked back up at me from the mirror, as I stood in jeans and a white bra, hair dampened with sweat and eyes red with choked back tears. As quickly as I could, I ran a brush through my hair, threw the least offensive red tee shirt over my head, and ran down the stairs.

Mike was smiling up at me, sitting on the couch next to Charlie.

Mike was a dead man.

"Hey, Bella, just wanted to offer you a ride. Make sure you weren't stuck in tonight." Mike's bright doe-eyes flashed mischievously back at me.

I returned his gaze with a glare that I hoped would get my message across.

Charlie smiled as Mike leapt off of the couch, as he took my hand and pulled me to the doorway.

"I'm going to call it an early night, so you just let yourself in when you kids are done hanging out." Charlie gave Mike a not-so-subtle wink and turned his head back towards the television set.

Before I could let another word out, my arm was being dragged from its socket and out the door.

*******************************************************************

"Hey, Bella, you made it!" Jessica beamed as I walked through her door. Her smile faltered slightly as Mike made his way through right after me.

My heart was thudding through my shirt as we made our way down into the basement. Jessica's house smelled of antiseptic. The odor immediately reminded me of a hospital, which did not help my stomach to calm down.

I nodded my head at her and hoped I had placed a normal look on my face. I wasn't sure I could trust how my voice would come out if I used it. I hadn't said a word to Mike on our drive here.

I tucked my feet between my knees as I sat around Jessica's coffee table, trying my best to stop shaking.

"Are you feeling okay? You look strung out." Lauren's eyes appraised my haphazard hair and pasty complexion.

I nodded again. I had as much conversational prowess as a bobble-head toy.

Connor and Tyler sat to Lauren's right, while Mike had sat down between Jessica and me.

"I can do this," I thought to myself. "Just our lunch table. Think of it like you're at school."

However, I was never really comfortable in the cafeteria, and had made good use of my notebook to escape awkward conversations and general discomfort. It had become my security blanket, and it was nowhere in sight.

Lauren reached behind her and pulled out a large glass bottle full of amber liquid. I noticed that everyone in the circle besides Mike and me had cups in front of them. My heart began to palpitate. She poured a fair amount into a small shot glass and pushed it towards me.

"A little pick me up for the guest of honor," Lauren said with a false bravado in her voice. Her eyes were dancing at me, daring me to speak.

"Oh, that's alright," I heard my voice come out an octave higher than I thought possible, "I have to go back home tonight, and my-"

I was stopped mid-sentence by Lauren's sneering drawl.

"Oh, for the love of all that is holy. Jessica, I told you this was a bad idea. What the hell is the goddamn point of her even being here?"

Jessica stared at Lauren with her mouth open like a codfish.

What was the point of me being here? I didn't know. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want any of this.

I didn't know what I wanted. Admitting that fact made my fingers touch the glass, weighing it in my grip.

"Bella, you cannot be serious."

My hand shook as the voice consumed my thoughts, my breaths, my every movement. Without my notebook to distract me from _his_ voice, I felt my sanity crash to the floor. I raised the shot to my lips.

"Don't be juvenile about this, Bella. Is this really going to help?"

He bellowed at me, and I could see his face in front of me, staring at my predicament, rolling his eyes casually.

With a slight smirk and a deep breath, I thought to myself, "I don't know if it's going to help, but it can't hurt me more than you did."

My head went backwards.

My throat seared with fiery pepper.

My stomach turned against the liquid now sitting at its top.

****************************************************************

The night fragmented around me like a crooked projector in a movie theater. Blackness, then full picture with sound, then voices, then colors. Everything was distracting and confusing. I felt myself slide onto a slick leather couch.

I stared blearily all around me, trying to focus on one thing in particular to keep the room from spinning me in circles like a pinwheel. I zoned in on Jessica's bare feet, which were slung over Connor's face. Both of them seemed to be asleep.

My eyes then darted to Lauren… or Tyler… or Lauren and Tyler. They were meshed together so that I didn't know whose hand was whose. The permanent blush on my face grew red hot as I turned my head away.

How had I let myself get here? This was not the Bella Swan I had ever known. But with every shot I had been goaded in taking, with every drinking game I had been introduced to, _he_ had been there, begging me to stop. The more I drank, the more the voice persisted, until blithely fading away into the background that surrounded me.

After turning my head away from the tangled mess of body parts writhing in the corner, my eyes locked in on Mike.

"… and you know, I really, really, really thought that we were going to go together. But then I couldn't do anything… stupid girls' choice… and…"

I had a feeling that Mike had been carrying on a conversation with me for quite some time now. Having come back to reality, I tried to concentrate on what he was saying. His voice was deeper, the ends of his words stumbling slightly over each other, blending in without breaking.

"I just need to know, ya know, Bella? I mean, there's you, and me, and we could…"

His voice trailed off as I stared at his lips, trying to concentrate on the movement of them to make out what he was saying. I could hear his voice, see his lips, but was having a hard time deciphering what he was saying.

And then the lips seemed to grow in size as they made their way closer to me. I could feel myself go cross-eyed trying to keep them in focus.

And then he was lying on top of me, wrapping me up in his arms.

And his weight was foreign and cumbersome as my back bent into the armrest behind me.

His nose brushed against mine, and his lips began their attack. Hot, sticky breath mingled with mine as I tried to grasp what was occurring. His lips forced mine open as I felt his slick, wet tongue try to grapple with mine. He tasted like nachos and nail polish. Warm, sloppy whiskey licking at my face.

Not cool, not hard, not breathlessly sweet as honey. It was wrong, all wrong.

"_Mike Newton would be a hell of a lot healthier for you to be with." _

"_I would rather die than be with Mike Newton. I'd rather die than be with anyone but you."_

I pushed his writhing body off of me, knocking him into the coffee table. With the palm of my hand, I wiped the excess spit off of my cheek. Without a word, I tripped and swayed up the stairs and out of Jessica's house. As the Forks night air whipped around me, I blubbered into the night.

"I'm not dead, but I sure as hell might as well be."


	9. Stuck Socks and Worthy Snacks

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Hehe, okay, Jacob made it in there, but he stays wolfy throughout. Never fear… oh, and this chapter was a reworking of sorts from the one in New Moon (S. Meyer owns it all, I do declare).

It had to be put in… due in part to a pixie-like vampire making her debut in the next chapter.

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**~*~ Stuck Socks and Worthy Snacks~*~**

"Oh!" I exclaimed as my sock caught on the floorboard next to the dresser. I had successfully walked the mile and a half back to my house and snuck into the house without waking Charlie. My knees and the jeans I had been wearing did not fare as well.

I had left the bloodied pants in a small pile in the corner of my room, drunkenly slinking on a pair of sweats backwards. I left my red tee on and had promptly trudged off to the bathroom to wash my mouth of the residue of Mike and whiskey.

After deliberating over the mirror, in what I had been sure was a philosophical conversation with myself, I swayed back to my bedroom. I had decided to move the dresser. I needed the window, needed the hope, any glimmer, that he might want to come back into my room.

When I had first entered the small bedroom, I had a paranoid feeling of being watched. This familiar feeling usually was harbored when he had, in fact, been staying the nights with me before I knew what he did to occupy the hours between twilight and dawn.

"Come. Out. Of. There." I huffed at my sock, as it slid further into the floorboard. I dug my fingernails under the splinters and pulled up on the wood.

"Urmph." With a slight smack, the piece of board came free and hit me in the forehead. Blinking furiously and staring slightly cross-eyed, I caught a small glimmer from inside the hole I had created in my floor.

Never had I understood the phrase "sobering up fast", but at this moment, I knew exactly what it meant. I was staring at him. At his perfectly luminescent eyes, his chiseled jaw, his arm wrapped snugly around mine.

My pictures. Our pictures.

And my song.

My fingers trembled as I placed my right hand finger on the cover of the CD he had given to me right before he left. The tears were spurting out of my eyes, and I began to only make out small squiggles of the treasures I had found.

I wiped my eyes furiously, wondering if alcohol could make me hallucinate as well as hear disembodied voices. Surely this could not be real.

The doors slid open on my closet, as I grunted and grabbed for the pullover I had worn each night. Sliding it on over my head, I lumbered back to the hole and pulled out the pictures and the disk.

I kept the photos clutched in my left hand, removing the CD with my other. My right thumb lightly caressed the metallic rainbow of the disk. His handwriting was on the front cover. His letters were curved and perfect.

He had touched this. He had written on it. He had thought the words that decorated the front,

_To my Bella, _

_a hopefully acceptable gift, _

_for your unaccepted day._

_Love forever and always, _

_Your Edward_

As I read the message in my mind, my voice formed his name. Edward. My heart beat erratically as it had done when he drew near me. I hadn't allowed myself to think or see his name since he left me.

My hand slid over the play button, as the disk began to whirl around. I curled up into a ball on my bed, waiting for the notes to hit my ears.

The first stanza of the lullaby drifted in through the room, and I could feel his arms around me. His breath whispered in my earlobe, making the hair on my neck bristle. He drew lazy circles on the back of my hand, rocking me back and forth to the music.

"I knew you'd come back," I heard myself murmur slightly into the darkened room.

There was no answer.

I stayed awake and in blissful denial the rest of the night.

********************************************************************

The skin on my hands had become raw and chapped as I pushed my way through the underbrush, determined to find the spot I had made up my mind to see last night.

I had crawled out of bed when the sun came up, not having slept at all. My stomach reeled from the night before, and I ran into the bathroom to clean up the mess I had made of myself. Charlie was up by the time I was done.

"Have fun last night, Bells?"

"Mmmm," was all that I could reply to him, trying not to be repulsed over the smell of reheated bacon.

He stared in my direction for a few moments, and then just nodded his head, saying off-handedly that he would be fishing with Billie Black for the rest of the day. This fit my plans perfectly.

Blundering through the pacific forest unprepared and without hiking boots had not been the best idea. I wasn't even sure I would be able to find it. After convincing myself of his presence, however, a drive had been sparked in me to see it once more. Our meadow.

And just as I was growing increasingly frustrated with myself to the point of turning back, the trees broke and a swooping sensation filled my stomach.

I pushed the leaves back from the trees and caught the fragrant scent of wildflowers and evergreens. The light shone, peeking between the varied moody clouds in the sky, piercing pieces of land like a puzzle. I stepped out cautiously, ready to let my emotions consume me.

However, I was not alone in our meadow. A lone figure stood out against the earthy colors in the background.

"Laurent!"

"Bella? When I found the Cullen place empty, I thought they had moved on."

"They did move on."

"Weren't you sort of a pet of theirs?"

"Apparently much less. Not even worthy for a snack." I smiled bitterly at my own sarcasm.

"Hmmm," he hummed from deep within his throat. His eyes were piercing black. He looked ravenous.

And then a deliciously addictive voice I had heard the night before called out to me, "Bella, do not mess around. This is serious. He is serious. Try to get away."

I smiled blithely in the direction of no one in particular, and, just as I had last night, I paid no heed to the voice, testing him to call out to me again.

"You look a little peaked," I said offhandedly to Laurent.

"Yes, well I will have to tend to that, shall I? Although Victoria will be quite cross with me. She rather wanted to take care of you herself."

The voice began to reverberate through my skull, "Bella, no! Get away from him! Please, do it now!"

I took a deep breath and said what I had been thinking all along, "You know, you could taste me and still leave me for Victoria, if you think you're strong enough to do it."

Laurent's eyes fogged over for a brief moment, taking in the words I had said to him. I knew there was a severely large possibility that if I let him bite me, I would die. But there was also the slim chance that I would be victorious in that _my_ hunger would be quenched. My hunger for _him_.

And wasn't that what he had hated so much about being with me? Acting human. The voice persisted its cry from my temples.

"No, Bella, no!" It sobbed tearless laments. "Don't, please don't do this!"

Laurent smiled to one side of his face. Unlike the crooked smile I had come to miss and adore, his distorted the features on his face, making his black eyes squint, now focused right on my neck.

Just as he was bending his knees in order to advance, a giant streak of black pounded his body with a large smash to the ground. He twisted out from under the paws of the beast and fled deeper into the forest. The black creature followed at an inhuman speed.

Standing alone and abandoned in the meadow, I sank to my knees. Two more animals came trotting past me, and I reached out. I couldn't be alone. I couldn't be allowed to die. I couldn't be allowed to change. I just needed to hold onto something.

As if hearing the thought process in my head, the russet wolf turned its head to the right, looking me in the eye. It slowly crept forward, and instead of feeling fearful, I felt a peaceful calm spread over me.

I reached out slowly to pet its muzzle, and rolling its eyes into the back of its head, the beast curled up around me, enveloping me in an earthy musk scent. Tightly fisting the fur, I pulled my face into the animal's back and cried.


	10. Shocking Marinara and Tearless Shudders

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Alright, I'll be the first to admit I really rushed writing the last chapter… It's because I already had this one written and just wanted to get there already! Thanks so much for everyone's comments, even constructive criticism. I lurves it :)

This is the last update for a few days… So sorry, but I work all weekend and have a scary Anthropology dissertation pitch to prepare.

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**~*~ Shocking Marinara and Tearless Shudders~*~**

Twilight illuminated the deep hills rolling throughout the forest, casting eerie blue shadows on my white hands. I had cried into the animal's fur until I had no further tears to cry. With a gasping breath and a shudder, I pushed away from the russet fur and stood up on shaky legs.

"Thank you," my raspy voice squeaked out. For some reason I felt as if it could understand me. And to my great astonishment, the wolfish creature touched my palm with its wet nose, and trotted away into the tree line.

For the first time in my life, the meadow held neither peace nor hope, and I hurriedly ran my hands through the underbrush, not trusting myself to peer back into the clearing without breaking down yet again.

Around an hour and multiple scratches later, I found myself back at the door to Charlie's house. My hand snaked around the doorknob as I made my way to the kitchen to make myself spaghetti. Charlie still hadn't returned from his fishing expedition. I had a feeling that he had headed back with Billy to watch a Saturday game.

The noodles bubbled in the boiling water as I stared determinedly at the sauce simmering on the opposite burner. I trembled as I recounted the events that had happened earlier that afternoon.

"Bella, you truly are one messed up girl." I pointed the saucy spoon at my reflection in the microwave.

I was comforted in the fact that I had seen Laurent, if only to confirm the fact that the Cullens had existed at all. However, the fact that I was so willing to risk my life to get him back had my head in a panic and my heart in a lurch.

I slid the spaghetti onto a ceramic plate and poured the steaming sauce over it. The steam curled in spirals into the air, and I made my way to the kitchen table to eat dinner alone. I picked at the meal, realizing that I hadn't eaten all day, and realizing that the way my nerves were jumping around, I may never want to eat again.

Cutting the thin noodle and sliding it onto my fork, I tried to force-feed myself to no avail. My throat simply refused to swallow the foreign pieces. A small smile curled around my lips as I remembered the time that he had eaten a bite of pizza. I wondered if he had felt the same way.

That was when it happened. I had abandoned the dinner idea and was moving to dump the uneaten meal into the trashcan when I heard it. A creak of the door. A light step of a stiletto.

"Bella?"

The plate came crashing to the ground, covering me in shockingly red marinara.

*************************************************************

The amber eyes pierced into my chocolate ones, as I was attacked by small, cold hands.

"Bella! You're alive!" Alice's tinkling voice exclaimed as she pulled back to take inventory on me.

"A-a-alice?" I stuttered. I couldn't form words, let alone a coherent sentence. I wanted to slap myself to see if I were dreaming or if my hallucinations had become even more severe. I briefly wondered if I still had the number of Dr. Blomquest.

"Oh, Bella, you had me so worried! When Laurent went at you, and then I just couldn't _see_ you. Did he bite you? Are you okay? Your eyes are so red! Oh, I missed you!" She spoke feverously fast, as if I would run away at any minute.

I gulped deeply into my throat and forced my head to stop spinning from the unexpected visitor.

"Alice, why are you here?" It was a valid question, and the only one that was screaming out loud enough from all the other questions flogging my head.

She gave me a questioning stare, "I was worried about you. I can't believe you ran into Laurent. Carlisle was furious when he found out."

Aha. So the doctor had been mad that I had yet again put myself in a situation of danger. I had always thought fondly of him, but wondered what the significance of my life meant to any of them now. Surely if _he_ had grown tired of my frail humanity, the rest of the family had as well.

"I still don't see why you're here." I said bluntly.

The look that crossed Alice's face was one of confusion and hurt. "Bella, I _couldn't see _you. I thought Laurent had… well, that he had…"

And for some reason, watching Alice try to explain or validate her reason for setting foot in my house, her reason for looking into my future at all, caused a stream of annoyance to creep through my veins.

"That he had what? Bitten me? Killed me? I'm human, Alice. I'm going to die someday, so I don't see what the difference is, be it a few months or a few years after you all left me here." My stare was cold, and it broke my heart to say the words out loud. But they were the truth. They were what I was feeling.

"No, Bella! Please, listen. You don't understand. It was all a big mistake that we-"

I cut her off. "It was no mistake. I understand, and I'm sorry that I worried you with the vision that you had." As much as I had missed Alice when trying to bond with the other Forks teenagers, the notion had hit me. She had left me, too. My only friend, and she left. She had grown tired.

She looked into my eyes, teetering on the edge of speaking.

"You know, you left me, too. You all left me." I said quietly and in a menacing voice. I was surprised at the tone that came from my scratched vocal chords. They were harsh and foreign. I sounded dangerous.

"Bella, I never wanted to leave you, but Edward had decided and, well, he's my brother. I had to do what he wished. He thought it would be harder for you if we all stayed…"

My icy glare never wavered.

"I'm so sorry. I should have… I know I should have stayed… but I did try to reason with everyone… so sorry." If she had been able to produce tears, I'm sure her perfectly heart-shaped face would be damp with them by now. She gave shuddering gasps, and clasped me to her yet again.

"Alice, this is too hard. He was right. I can't handle you being here. I can't handle knowing that you're peeking in on my life. He wanted to forget. I should allow him that courtesy, at least."

And Alice and I were shaking together, my eyes closed tightly. All of my tears had been used up in the meadow. I was shaking and mourning just as Alice was.

She pulled away from me after a few minutes. She stared at me intently, merely inches away from my face.

"Bella. You do know that he could never forget you. He will never forget you. You changed him."

Looking at the expression on my face, one of pure incredulity, she took another short breath and began again.

"He loves you. He always has. He thought he was being selfish staying here and putting you in danger. He thought it would be best if we left and let you have a normal, happy life."

"I don't believe you. It doesn't make sense, Alice. I put myself in those situations. He simply got tired of dealing with the accident prone person I am. Who would want the dramatics of that anyway? And I am anything but normal, and anything but happy."

"I know that," she whispered, touching her head. "And this isn't the first time I've meddled with anything. Edward would be furious if he knew about the pullover… but, Bella, I saw you in our house alone and missing him, and I just couldn't let you leave without something."

I wrung my hands together. I had reveled in the piece of clothing that smelled of him, had been able to be at better peace when wrapped up in something that had touched his body. I felt some of the annoyance melt away as I realized that Alice had at least cared enough to grant me that one favor.

"Thank you. But that only proves that you worry about me and that I am hopelessly attached to someone I can't have."

She stared at me, and began to chew lightly on her tongue, tapping her fingers on her thigh. "Bella, he came to see you."

"What? I haven't seen him. Not at all. I would have known he was there."

"Last night. I had a fleeting vision of you drinking with Mike and some of the others, and before I could hide it from him, he was in his car and on his way back to Forks. I followed after him."

My heart leapt into my throat as I remembered the feeling last night, the feeling of being watched… being wrapped up in his arms.

"But… but why?"

Alice was about to speak when her eyes glazed over. After a few seconds she muttered,

"Oh!"

I looked at her as I waited for an explanation. I was not ready to forget the anger I felt, and I tried to keep my face contorted in a frown.

She mumbled to herself, "Oh, oh. I told him not to come. Not yet."

Before I could ask what on earth she was talking about, her face turned away from me and towards the front door.

I felt a gust of chilled night air hit my tear-stained face, as I turned in slow motion to see the person in the doorway. The wind flew through rumpled bronze hair that struck hard alabaster skin. Before I could look at his face, Edward had pushed Alice aside and stood right in front of me.

"Bella," he murmured, as one long, cold finger moved to trace my cheek.

And, just as it had in Dr. Blomquest's office, the room spun around me, swirling black against the familiar background. I was falling slowly and gracefully into a pit of darkness. My eyes rolled into the back of my head, and the last thing I saw was the face of a love I thought I had lost forever.


	11. Stinging Palms and Three Dead Fish

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

So, when I have work and a report to finish, what do I do? Procrastinate, of course. This is a short chapter, but there is much more a-coming after it.

And thanks to everyone for the reviews and alerts. They make me just want to lick every single one of you (creepy, yes, but oh so true).

I don't own twilight… sigh… or my own private sexilicious vampire.

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**~*~ Stinging Palms and Three Dead Fish~*~**

"Bella… Bella… Bella… Bella."

The velvety voice chanting my name like a mantra woke me back from my stupor. I gazed up dizzily, feeling the cold sweat that had accumulated on my brow trickling down my face. I stared up into the face I thought I would never see again.

Edward looked back at me, his eyes full of love and torment. I shakily tried to move myself to my feet as I pushed out of his arms. I needed to look at him, see him face to face. His grip remained unwavering against me as I struggled.

"I need to get up," I gasped, wanting desperately to be control of my physical self in order to be in charge of my emotional stability. It seemed vital, necessary to my own sanity.

With a slight sigh, he loosened his hands from around my arms and helped me up. I took a few steps back, steadying myself and peering up. I tried for a second to collect my thoughts, but just as with Alice, my mind seemed to be racing and my mouth took over where my racing brain couldn't.

"You came back."

"Yes," he said cautiously. I could see him trying to contain himself from asking me to sit back down. His hands tensed as they stayed at his sides.

"Why? Why bother coming back?" It was the question that I had been battling with since Alice returned. I could barely survive having him leave me once, and I wasn't sure that my heart could be torn apart for a second time.

"Alice explained it to you, Bella. I simply cannot be without you." His brow creased as he tried to gage the expression on my face. I could feel it change from confusion to frustration rapidly.

"No. You explain it to me. I need to hear it. From you." I blushed slightly at by boldness and as my voice cracked in the middle of my sentence.

"Bella, your birthday… how close… I could _not_ allow anything like that to happen again, for you to come to harm's way because of what I am. I love you with every fiber of my existence, and if you being safe meant me living without you, I felt it was something I must have done. Please know that I never… I never wanted to hurt you. I only want to protect you… to love you."

For the first time of my knowing Edward, I heard him stutter. He mauled his sentences, his light tenor stretched tightly. He was strapping back the hurt in his voice.

"If that's the truth, then why didn't you just tell me that before you left?"

Although I thought I knew why. I wouldn't have let him leave. He sighed deeply, his voice creeping an octave lower.

"Because, Bella, I could see that you weren't going to let go. It was hard enough as it was, making that choice. To try to leave when you knew how much… how much I truly love you. I would not have been able to leave if you were to beg me not to."

I scoffed at this. I had tried desperately to beg. I had fallen to pieces. He continued after the sad little noise came out of my throat.

"But you believed me so easily, believed that I could not feel the way I do for you any more," he said in a frustrated tone.

Everything began to flood behind my eyes, raging through my body like a wild animal. The past months of agony, of tears, of forced friendship, of blocked windows, of whiskey kisses unwanted, of disks and pictures and sweaters, of notebooks filled with trite drabble all consumed my mind. I allowed the anger to flow, and it burst out of my body in a torrent.

Something I thought that I would never do happened at that moment. I felt my right hand slice sharply through the air, and it made contact with the side of Edward's gloriously flawless cheek. My palm stung with cold and hardness as my other hand raised to repeat what the first had done.

Fleeting memories from my fateful birthday flew over my ears, as Romeo's exclamation rang in ironic tones.

_See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!  
O that I were a glove upon that hand,  
that I might touch that cheek!_

Edward's eyes filled with despair, weaving through the topaz like a sieve. My open palms turned into fists, a continuum of the strokes I had lashed into the hole in my truck. My breathing was quick and ragged as I repeatedly pulled and pushed into his marble chest. My knuckles began to give way to the pressure, and I wondered how long I could keep up with my assault.

Steely hands lightly, yet firmly, grabbed my wrists, locking them in front of my body. My limbs writhed for a few seconds before I gave up my futile attempts. My voice shook with anger and the sting of abandonment as I stared into Edward's pained face.

"I should have had a choice, too! Why did you get to choose? It hurt the both of us, Edward, me _and_ you. You're right. I wouldn't have let you go, but that would have been because I knew we couldn't be happy without each other."

His smooth lips parted as if he were about to speak. I glared at the offending mouth, and it closed immediately.

"And I believed you so easily because…well, look at me, Edward! I mean, really look at me. And look at you. I know you won't admit that you see it… I don't even know if you do see it. But I had been waiting for you to grow tired of me all along."

He spoke softly, releasing my limp hand and touching the hair that had become entangled on the side of my face from sweat and tears.

"Bella, you are beautiful. You are perfect as you are."

His touch sent electric sparks through my skin, and my treacherous cheeks blushed pink with the caress that I had hoped would return. I struggled against the urge to lose my resolve and press my lips to his, to forget anything that had happened, and just be Bella and Edward again.

I broke my gaze away from his taut mouth, gulping and making eye contact with him once more, willing myself to keep talking.

"It's so much more than that. I am plain in comparison to you, but there are other things. I can hardly stand up straight without you having to catch me. I could never accumulate the intelligence you have in a single lifetime. I…" my voice faltered at the last point I wished to make.

I had thought about it for quite some time now, but voicing it was a scary and daunting thing to do. Once out in the open, I wasn't sure if I would be ready for the answer.

"I… I'm… why _me_, Edward? I don't know if it's because you can't read my mind or because of my scent that makes me so different. They are the only things I can think of that set me apart from anyone else… someone like Angela or-"

My stuttering lips were silenced at once by a cool fingertip. Edward placed his hand to the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes tight. After a few seconds, he held me with his eyes.

"Never…" His voice slipped against itself for the second time, breaking in odd contrast to the fluidity of his enunciation. "Never say anything like that again. Ever, Bella."

His eyes swam with tears that could never be spilled, yet his gaze never strayed away from my own.

"I love _you_, Bella, just you. When you trip, it is an excuse for me to touch you. When you talk to me, you say things that intrigue me. I have always craved to know what goes through your mind, and your scent…"

He paused for only a moment, his face drawing nearer to mine.

"Your scent is the least tempting part of you."

I shivered involuntarily, familiar goose bumps pimpling my neck. His fingers laced against the back of my head, latticing themselves between my matted hair. Two thumbs began to outline each contour of my face, leaving a burning trail in their wake.

He lightly drew my head closer to him, and I felt myself forgetting that he had ever left. His sweet honeyed breath danced across my face. I could feel the current between the millimeter of space between our lips, and my heart raced with anticipation.

My mouth parted, wanting only to ignore the past transgressions in order to physically feel that he had returned to me. Just as his chin tilted and moved forward slightly, I heard the bang of the front door reverberate the frame.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?!?"

Charlie stood livid in the doorway, looking as if he were debating whether or not to attack Edward with the three dead fish dangling from his hand.


	12. Shattered Bullets & Lasagna a la Edward

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Okay, so this is kind of a transitional chapter. There's Forks high schooler's hormones coming up, Bella's getting down to the grit with her relationship with Edward, and collective Cullens are on the horizon… and is that Victoria I see?

**~*~ Shattered Bullets and Lasagna a la Edward ~*~**

My face flinched as a slow screeching sound careened against the wood flooring of my bedroom. Beads of sweat formed at my forehead as I pushed my back against the dresser, leaving the window uncovered. After successfully swinging it over to its prior place, I fell down on my back, bouncing slightly on my bed.

The past hour had been overwhelming and slightly scary. Overwhelming in that, well, Edward was back… and I still hadn't had enough time to even process the idea. I was still under the assumption that I would wake up in a few hours. The night had been slightly scary in that Charlie was not very happy.

Well, that would be an understatement. He was pretty furious.

I tried to put myself in his shoes and understand what he might be feeling. I guessed if my daughter's ex-boyfriend had left her, catalyzing her emergence into a catatonic shell, and was spotted months later on the brink of kissing her, I would probably make good use of the shotgun hanging next to the fireplace.

Which was what he had done.

He moved so quickly that I only saw a blur of plaid and jean as he threw the fish down onto the couch and grasped the gun off of the wall. I'm sure I looked horrified. I was fairly certain that Charlie wouldn't actually shoot Edward, but I had no idea how to explain a bullet being shattered when making contact with Edward's skin.

It seemed that Edward did not want to take the chance either. He let go of me, standing to his feet. His face was pulled in a nervously sad expression. I was sure he was reading Charlie's mind.

"You. Have. No. Right!" Charlie yelled, gruffly poking Edward in the chest. Edward backed away towards the door, hands held in front of him in a surrendering position.

"Please, sir, let me explain…" his melodic voice hit the air as his eyes bore into Charlie's.

"No need. I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth. I don't want to see your face around here. And I most definitely do not want your empty apologies. Now, get the hell out of my house."

Charlie's voice was dangerously low, his eyes ablaze with pure hatred. Edward glanced at me, as my head swerved from him to Charlie and back again. He backed up towards the front door and grasped the handle.

"I truly am sorry…" he said, his voice catching in his throat, "more than you will ever know." He turned to the door and opened it, letting in the Forks night air. He briefly turned once more, and gave me a blazing look that stoked a fire through my veins. He glanced up to my room, then back down at me, and shut the door behind him.

*************************************************************

I closed my eyes as I got back up off of my bed to open my window. My hands shook as they gripped the clasps and turned them to the right. My gaze slid over my floor, when it caught my attention. My blue notebook was nestled in between my clothes from the previous day. I grabbed the cool spiral binding, and took to my bed.

My fingers flipped from page to page, looking at the distracting piece of evidence; a reminder of what I had become when Edward left me. Had he been telling the truth? I couldn't fathom why else he would be back now, trying to connect with me once again. Letting out a gust of air, I glanced down at the page open in my hands.

Dotted and skewed along the recipe for a lasagna, his name was etched over and over again. I flipped through the rest of the notebook and realized that his name marred each entry, each written distraction. He had perforated my every thought. My subconscious had been screaming his name at me.

I hadn't had a choice. I hadn't had a say. Our relationship had always been that way. He always decided what was best. He had convinced me that the severity of the situation called for him to use his judgment, but in the wake of it all, I had lost mine.

Letting his absence sift through my soul and slowly kill me, I had given up the independent, strong person that I knew myself to be deep down. At that moment, thin white fingers graced the window frame, and I briefly wondered where Charlie had left his shotgun.

My heart involuntarily sped up, beating furiously as a hummingbird, catching in the back of my throat. He slowly stepped around the debris that littered my floor, settling himself beside me on my bed.

"I'm sorry for the way Charlie reacted. Please, Bella, don't be angry with him. He has every right to feel how he does… and his thoughts…" Edward had mistaken my look of rage as one of that pointed towards Charlie.

"I'm not mad at Charlie. I understand what he's thinking."

His mouth slid upward into his signature grin, as he tucked a rogue hair behind my ear. I could feel myself slipping, getting lost in his eyes, and I shook my head furiously in order to keep my mindset on track.

I faltered for a second, before whispering, "So, what happens now?" My stare stayed firmly on my laced fingers, not daring to look back up at his glorious face. I felt a cool finger hook under my chin, as my face was pulled upward.

"We will be together. Always. I don't have a care for anything that happens, as long as I am with you."

My eyes stubbornly locked on his forehead. I could not allow myself to get lost in his honey eyes. I had said to myself once that I loved Edward unconditionally, and that would never change. However, I was realizing that it would take me time to get over the pain that his absence had caused me.

"I…" I stuttered, blinking back tears, "I… need time, Edward. I died when you left. I… well, I just faded into nothing, into no one… and I can't go on knowing that you could leave again. I need to know that I'll have a choice, too."

Tears trickled from the sides of my eyes as I looked at Edward's hopeless expression.

"I will never, ever leave again, Bella. You have to know that." He touched the top of my hand, and I involuntarily shivered.

But, with resolve in my voice, I said what I was truly feeling. No forgetting, no filtering.

"I don't know that. You promised me once. You broke your promise. You broke me. I just… need time to trust you again."

He looked as if he had eaten a lemon. His lips pursed and he muttered, "I completely understand you not trusting-" and I cut him off, rolling my eyes and wiping them at the same time.

"Edward, I don't not trust you because of what you are, I don't trust you for what you've done, for the fact that I have zero control when it comes to you and me. With anything. I want to be with you forever, you don't give me a choice. I want you to stay, you leave without giving me a choice. Physically I have never had a choice. It has to change, Edward, or I'm going to go insane."

Out of breath and shaking, all of my torrent emotions whirled around me, and I took my hand out from under his. Heart pounding out of my chest, I quickly grabbed the back of Edward's head, pulling hard on the smoothly disarrayed hair. I allowed myself one quick look at his eyes, a look of shock and confusion. Then mine closed.

And I was kissing his sweet, cold lips as I never had. Pressing hard against the marble mouth, I caught his bottom lip with my teeth and bit down. I was possessing and pushing and trying to press all of myself into him.

His hands swept down to my hips as I sat, straddling him. I let go of his lip and commenced to kiss him deeply. My hands wondered of their own accord, my head starting to spin with the dizzying feeling of Edward clinging to my body. I slid up and over and around his shirt, touching his stomach and back. I rocked slowly once, wanting to feel all of him.

That was when he tensed. His lips turned statuesque against mine, and his hands let go of my hips. He pulled away, giving me an all too familiar stern look.

I was surprised when my mouth curled up into a grimace.

"That's what I thought." I spat at him, my pride wounded yet again, frustration seeping through me, realizing that I would never be close enough to Edward as I needed.

"Bella," he said, a slight laugh in his voice, "you know I only desire you. It is just impossible for me." He looked at me with his amused expression, and my arms crossed over my chest.

"That's another thing you're going to have to figure out, Edward. You won't change me, yet you won't let me love you either. Physically love you."

I could hear the exasperated frustration wielded in his voice, "Bella, it is _impossible_. It's not something that could feasibly happen. I will not do anything that would compromise your safety like that."

I laughed in spite of myself, "You may have that choice, Edward, but now I do, too. And you could never hurt me physically the way you hurt me when you walked away from me." I could feel the hole in my heart re-open as I said the harsh words to the man I knew I would always love.

"You can come to school. You can talk to me there, but until I have some things figured out, I can't be with you in any other way. It's too hard for me to be around you. I can feel myself wanting to just forget everything that happened and go back to the way we were."

"We can, Bella. Bella, we can do that. I'm willing to do anything you need to do, but I cannot stand to be without you. I can't lose you again."

"You didn't lose me, you left me. Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. If we go back to the way we were, you'll continue making decisions that affect the both of us, and I'll be stuck taking the repercussions of them."

"You want me to leave now," he stated, his voice small and sad. I looked up into his topaz eyes, full of regret, hurt, and pain, and part of me wanted to take back everything I had said to him that night.

And as much as I wanted to feel his arms around me, his voice tickling the inside of my ear as he hummed to me, I didn't think I would be able to stay true to the time I had allotted to myself to figure out everything between me and him.

"I never want you to leave again, but I need to be alone tonight."

He touched my cheek briefly, and I felt the blush creep up my neck and into my face. His eyes swam once again with unshed tears, and before I could stop my own from forming, my hair blew with a breeze, and he was gone.


	13. Cheese Surprise and Broken Newton

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Ah, this one's a long one. I couldn't really find a breaking point and didn't really want to. This chapter's been in my head for a while now, and I just want to get it out there! Thank you all so, so much for your reviews. Keep 'em coming… they are what make me want to keep writing. And a super-duper thank ya to InkStainedFire… nudists rule.

**~*~Cheese Surprise and Broken Newton~*~**

Sunday had passed with me stonily taking the repercussions of Charlie walking in on Edward embracing me the night before. He had checked in with Dr. Blomquest and had learned that I had only shown for one session.

"Bella, look at me."

Charlie snapped his fingers as I stared hazily at my bowl of fruit loops. I hadn't had much of an appetite, and the remaining pieces had begun to expand in the dregs of milk, gloopily filming over the top of the bowl. I forced my eyes to make contact with him.

Breakfast had seemingly become our time for serious talks.

"Are you alright, kid?"

"I'm-" I wanted to say that I was fine, that everything was okay. But I couldn't. I felt my throat close up as I let out a sigh and shrugged my shoulders.

"That's what I thought. Please, Bells, you know it's not my thing, and probably not yours either, but you _have_ to talk to someone about this. All of this. I know-"

He took a small breath before continuing.

"-that _that boy_ is back, but I can't stand to have you fall to pieces again. Your mother and I both have said you need this. If you can't allow yourself to get help over this, Renee is going to want you with her and away from the Cullen kid… and I'm not sure I'd disagree with her there."

The instinctual possessiveness and protection I had for Edward caused a surge of anger to flare through me at Charlie's words, but I was able to calm myself down and look him dead in the eye.

"I am _not_ leaving Forks. I promise I'll give it a try this time."

"Please do, Bells. I don't want you to have to leave."

He gave a short sigh, stood up from his chair, and gave me an awkward pat on the head. It was comforting to know that he cared, that he wanted me to be safe and happy, and it dawned on me just how much my dad loved me.

Which was why my hands now grasped the old rubber of my steering wheel as I made my way to Port Angeles. At least I had managed to survive the past school day, if only by the skin of my teeth.

**************************************************************

I was staring into the spectacle-shielded eyes of the psychologist. She smiled briefly at me as she pressed forward.

"I see. Well, you certainly have been through a lot these past few months. I am glad that you found the notebook helpful to you, if even in the slightest bit."

The skin around her eyelids crinkled as she looked at me. I had divulged to the best of my ability what had occurred from the time Edward had left up until now.

Leaving out all of the vampire parts, of course. I tried to skid over what Edward was to the best of my ability while staying as truthful as possible. However, with the understanding look Dr. Blomquest gave me, I was fairly certain she thought that Edward was either a convicted felon or may be harboring same-sex tendencies.

I was brought out of my musings by her next question.

"But, Bella, you said today had been rather difficult for you. Would you like to tell me about it?"

My fingers tied knots in the afghan on the couch as I fidgeted, still trying to take in all that had happened earlier today.

I had woken up and attempted to race to my window to peer down into the driveway, sliding and causing myself to land flat on my backside before actually making it to my target. Blushing to myself and scrambling to my feet, I drew the curtains and stared down.

Gravel. My old truck. Charlie's cruiser.

No Volvo.

It had been stupid of me to think that he would come to pick me up, as I had very blatantly made it clear that I wasn't ready to go back to the way things were… but I was beginning to find that old habits die hard, and having him so close, yet so far away, had been torturous just in the few hours he had returned.

I walked down the halls of Forks High in a haze. It was only when I stumbled into my third hour English class that I realized Edward had returned to school, and to his former schedule.

Promptly after locking eyes with him, the anthology I had clasped in my right hand crashed to the floor, hitting the linoleum with a loud smacking sound. Feeling the crimson creeping up to my cheeks, I bent down and slid into my normal seat.

Eight inches away from the perfection sitting to my left.

My heart pounded murderously in my chest, beating as if it were knocking on my ribcage, trying to burst out and run into his arms. I tried to listen throughout class, tried not to glance over at him, tried to stop the shaking of my hands. All was to no avail. I was a complete mess.

My hand shot into the air only ten minutes into the class.

"Yes, Miss Swan?"

"I'm not feeling too well, sir. May I be excused?"

The teacher's eyes flicked from me back to the textbook open in his hand. He looked slightly concerned. It may have been because, for the first time in months, I was showing signs of brain activity.

"Of course, of couse."

And at his dismissal I stuffed all of my things into my backpack and was heading for the door. I wouldn't allow myself to look back at the face that caused me to melt.

"As I was saying, Othello was not aware…"

The door shut and I made my way to the bathroom. Slamming my stuff onto the cold floor, I turned the faucet hard to the left and splashed water on my face. My pale self stared back at me, and I said out loud to myself,

"Damn it, Bella, snap out of it. You asked him for this. You need this."

But it didn't seem like what I needed. I needed _him_. However, a small part, the part that was vigilantly building my resolve up, knew that in order to have him I needed to understand myself first.

I hid out in the library, hoping that neither of the teachers in my next two classes would notice my absence. I tried desperately to sooth my spinning mind, to take my thoughts off of his face, his smell, the feel of his hands against my hips, his lips against mine.

It was a long two class periods.

"You can't hide out forever. You need to prove to yourself that you can do this," I thought to myself, collecting my bag and willing my feet to head towards the cafeteria.

My breathing was ragged as I pushed through the lunch line, grabbing my tray shakily and heading to my normal table.

Angela was the only one who had arrived thus far, and I was happy for the comfort that she gave. She was uncomplicated, and wouldn't ask any questions of me.

"Hey!" she said cheerily, peeking up from her notes and nodding her head at me.

"Hey, Angela."

I should have said something else, initiated a conversation, but I was having trouble controlling the tone of my voice. After a brief pause she turned back to her homework, and I began to pick at the forlorn food on my plate so dubbed "Cheese Surprise" by the school lunch crew.

It was then that I was hit with a serious case of déjà vu. I could feel his presence before I saw the glint of white in my peripheral vision. Some part of me had wondered… hoped… that he would take up his normal residence at our table. As with his car earlier in the morning, I had been wrong.

I chanced a quick glance to where he was sitting. Alice and him where the embodiment of beauty. Perfectly sculpted against the background of mundane teenagers. They sat alone, food untouched. Alice's hands were in his across the table. She looked worried, and he… he wore a face of anguish, of agony.

He pulled from her hands and turned his head to me. The chocolate in my eyes lapped at the honey in his, and I felt my face grow red and my eyelids snap open. He gave a small lop-sided grin to me, and I hurriedly looked down, returning to the pile of clotted cheese.

My attention vaguely back at the table, I was aware that everyone had seated themselves around me. With sudden recognition, I could feel the tension consuming everyone, and briefly wondered what I had missed. It was Lauren's harsh voice that struck me down.

"Jess, come on, we don't need to be sitting with this trash anymore." She gave me a fiercely cold stare as I confusedly turned to Jessica, looking at the tears swimming in her eyes.

Oh holy shit. Whiskey. Friday. Mike.

Jessica seemed stunned, unable to move, and Lauren grabbed both her tray and Jessica's and was shoving her away from the table and off to the other side of the cafeteria.

Angela looked just as confused as I had a second ago, watching the two walk away from us. It was the voice to the right of me that jogged me from my panic.

Mike was muttering under his breath to me,

"Really, Bella, don't sweat it. It's been over six freaking months. You'd think she'd be over it by now. Like I said, damn it, _she_ broke up with _me_. I don't get what her problem is." He nudged me with his shoulder and tried to take my hand in his.

He was successful for a few seconds, until I was aware of his fingers lightly scratching against the back of my hand. I withdrew it immediately, taking up my fork again. I looked over at him.

"Erm, Mike, I… I don't really know what to say. I don't usually drink and…" my voice trailed off. I was ashamed, embarrassed, infuriated, and guilty simultaneously. This wasn't his fault. I had given in as well. What was he supposed to think, anyway?

He gave a small smile and said,

"It's alright, Bella. I wanted to ask you anyway, how've you been today?"

It seemed an odd question for him to ask, but then I saw him glancing furtively over to the corner where I knew Edward and Alice sat.

"Oh!" I said, slightly too loud, "Fine, fine. Pretty much the same as every day."

He raised an eyebrow at me, and I went back to picking apart my food once more. I could feel Mike continue to stare at me, and I was about to ask him if he had anything else he wanted to say, when he was being dragged out of his chair.

"Newton, we need to talk." The ice that penetrated the velvet of the voice I craved to hear pierced my heart. He must have been listening. Must have heard Mike's thoughts. The guilt rode through me so harshly, that I turned my head frantically, trying to follow their path with my stare.

*****************************************************************

Mike didn't come back for the rest of the lunch period. Neither did Edward. I briefly wondered if Mike had survived the encounter, and then verbally punished myself in my mind for thinking that Edward would lack the self-control to contain his anger.

I dragged myself through the rest of my classes, noticing that neither of the boys had returned to any of them. It wasn't until the end of the day that I was aware of the outcome of their tryst. I heard a junior talking to one of her friends in the hallway.

"Well, apparently it's broken, and Cullen's been suspended for two days. I can't believe everyone missed it! I guess it's over that Swan girl," she gave a slight huff as she continued, "Well, I guess she must do something most girls won't do if she has a Cullen _and_ Mike after her, because it's obviously not her personality, frigid bitch that she is. Ugh, I still can't believe I missed it!"

I ran. I ran fast and hard to the parking lot.

Shutting my door, I fought back tears. The words of the unknown student had not rocked me as much as the fact that Edward had lost control enough to break something of Mike's. It hadn't been his fault. None of it had. It was me and my rash mistakes that always seemed to cause problems.

But Mike's physical well-being and my reputation were nothing in comparison to the sinking feeling of regret that had implanted itself in my stomach. Edward would not be there for two days. And as much as it had been frustrating and overwhelming for him to be there, I was devastated that I couldn't go through it again.

****************************************************

I told all of this to Dr. Blomquest. It took a few breaks tissues to get through, but I had laid myself out there, not holding back anything from her.

"There, there," she said, patting my knee, "It was a rough day for you. But you handled it to the best of your ability."

Her eyes slid to the clock as it showed five minutes past six.

"Ah, and we've run over time. I think we should schedule for regular Wednesday visits. Now, look at me Bella."

My swollen eyes blearily looked to her.

"I want you to come up with everything you love about Edward and everything that frustrates you with the relationship for next time. I think it will help for you to see on paper what you feel about your connection with him. And…" she said, her eyes slightly dancing with recognition, "I think you are certainly stronger than you think yourself to be. Give yourself some credit. You deserve it."

And with that, I was out of the office, back in my car, and ready to slip into the safety of sleep.


	14. Closed Toilets and Forgetting Eggs

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Not a very long one, but I felt guilty for not updating as regularly. Hope you like, and as always I enjoy constructive criticism as well as praise. (Heh, and I added a little Jessica joke for those of you who have read my parodies).

Reviews make rainbows shine out of every orifice of my body. And I mean it.

However I don't own any rainbows to my knowledge, and own as many of them as I do Twilight copy write.

**~*~Closed Toilets and Forgetting Eggs~*~**

"Well, I was right there. I saw it, okay? And there is _no way_ Mike could've come out of that without at least a bruise. I mean, have you seen Edward's muscles?" A brassy feminine voice reverberated around the room.

"Who hasn't?" the second high voice scoffed, "I can't believe Newton took a swing at him. The Cullens… I dunno… they can be a little off sometimes."

"Jesus, there is nothing _off_ about Edward. The way he just ducked out of the way of Mike's arm was like… unbelievable, like out of some Jet Li movie or something."

"Yeah, well, even though he's hot, he didn't have to go and break in another decent face. I mean, the boy population in Forks isn't growing."

The two voices laughed together, as I heard the metallic sound of two purses zipping up. High heel clad feet tapped onto the bathroom tile and out into the hall. I gave a deep breath in, which was not such a good idea, as I was sitting on top of the closed lid of the toilet on the furthest stall.

I had been reduced to a high school cliché in one solitary day. Sitting alone. At lunch time. Hiding from the chaos around me.

I had not seen Edward since he had pulled Mike out of his seat the day before. Leaving my window unlatched, but closed, I drifted off to a very sound sleep (in due part to the mental work I had undertaken with Dr. Blomquest).

When I woke up the next morning, I checked my window out of the habit that had yet to be broken. The latches were locked. Part of my mind rejoiced in wondering if Edward had come to see me the night before, while the other part debated if I would be angry with him or not if he had gone against my wishes in seeing me outside of school.

The lines of need and want had become so blurred, that I began to have a constant headache.

My heart sunk into the bottom of my chest as I parked my ancient truck in the school lot. The first day without Edward here, if the rumors were true. They had seemed to be. There was no silver Volvo in the parking lot.

Catching my eye as I spun the combination on my locker was a familiar face walking down the hallway… framed by purple swollen patches under his eyes and obscured by a large white split.

Mike's nose was surely broken.

He gave a faint wave and a small smirk to me as he ambled down the hallway. I had expected to feel anger at Edward for losing control, for hurting Mike when the whole ordeal was as much my fault as it was his. However, with that smirk and the confident bravado that followed him down the hall, I felt myself wanting to rip open the bandage and punch his wound again.

"Come on, Bella. Stop thinking like that. You are one seriously deranged girl." I tried to calm myself down in my head.

I took my bag full of books out of my locker and made my way to first period.

It was fine.

Third period, English, was torture. Edward's seat stood empty, and just the thought of him occupying it made my heart beat out of its cavity.

It was achingly frustrating.

Calculus and sitting next to Jessica in fifth period was, in a word, horrible. Guilt consumed me, radiating off of my face in the form of a blush. I glanced a peek over to her to see her expression. Her eyes were blank and glossy, staring unfocused at the blackboard.

I peered down to her notes, half-way expecting to see "Die, evil Bella whore, die" written in the margins, but the page was as vacant as her eyes. My heart sunk even lower into my leg.

It was consuming me with guilt.

Making my way to sixth period lunch, I traipsed down the lunch line and made a beeline towards my normal table. Jessica and Lauren were sitting back down at it. Angela and Ben had remained as well.

I glanced around to see where Tyler or Mike might be, and found them in deep conversation with the rest of the basketball team. I couldn't sit at my normal table, that much was clear, and I couldn't very well sit at a random person's table either.

"You would think that in a small school of about two hundred kids you would be able to know more than a handful," I scolded myself in my mind. Eyes slightly jerking with tears, looking desperately around, I tersely flitted them back over to the table where Jessica was sitting.

Lauren was smirking, Jessica looked dead, and Angela was looking wirily at Ben.

I placed the whole tray in the trashcan and slid out of the cafeteria as fast as my clumsy feet would allow. Locking myself in the girls' bathroom, I sat and thought, and cried. Crying had seemingly become unavoidable lately.

Just as the two girls who had been tittering on about the transgression that took place yesterday, another sound of quickly clapping heels touched the floor… lightly and perfectly. There was a slight rap on the metal stall door that now encased me from the world of teenage hell.

"Bella?" her familiar tinkling voice called hesitantly outside of the door.

The torrent of emotions within me was very strange. I felt joyous and comforted by her presence, but had also grown such a stubborn mind that I wasn't sure if I was ready to forgive her for leaving me as well.

"Oh, Bella, don't do that. Please, just talk to me for a second."

My mind whirled. I had been planning on telling her to go away and that I would be able to see her in due time, but my throat caught at her words and I breathed out a small sigh. The latch of the stall door clicked, and I swung the door open with my foot.

"What, Alice?" I said, rather resigned, my elbows in my lap and my hands cradling my cheeks.

Her incredulous amber eyes looked at me, her right eyebrow raised in scrutiny. The thing that she did next, I would have never expected. She began to laugh. A high bell-like laugh that vibrated the bathroom walls.

Looking at my predicament, and at how severely pathetic I must have looked, I shrug and gave a smile, chuckling at the picture of myself now forming in my head.

***************************************************************

"Anyway, so that's what he was planning on doing before I saw Laurent go for you… Esme nearly lost her mind, and I tried to tell him that even though I was blocking you out I would most likely see if Victoria was trying to get at you. But he was adamant… well, you know him."

Alice had forged a doctor's note, at my slight protest, for the office after she had retrieved me from the restroom. I was only faintly hesitant in that I really didn't want to be at the school any longer. I didn't think I would be able to take it.

We had gone to my house. I wasn't quite ready to enter the Cullen's place just yet, and Alice had understood before I said anything. Half of the time I wondered if she knew because of her gift or because she knew me so well. Most likely it had been a bit of both.

Maybe it was because the closest thing to friendship I had experienced in the last six months had been Jessica and my futile attempt at a connection. Maybe it was because she looked at me so innocently with her large, plate-like eyes. Maybe it was because I had completely isolated myself.

Whatever the reason, I had completely warmed back up to Alice. Her lips became as hurried as a hummingbird's wings as she told of what she had been doing while she was away. We both had silently tabooed any talk of reasons of leaving me behind, be it by her, by, Edward, or by any other Cullen.

I made myself a sandwich, lathering on the strawberry jam, as she continued babbling away. I took down my lunch in five bites. It was already two o'clock, and I hadn't eaten anything for lunch. The peanut butter made the back of my throat scratchy.

She had just finished telling me of Edward's plans to go seek Victoria, when she asked me another question that I had not been ready for.

"So… have you gotten any work done on that list of yours?" she asked slyly.

My mind frantically searched, wondering whether I had left the grocery list undone and she had seen me forgetting eggs or some other trivial item.

"Erm…?" I gurgled, my throat still thick with the peanut butter.

"Oh come on, Bella, the Naughty or Nice list!" she said with a wink.

I groaned slightly as I remembered Dr. Blomquest's suggestion. Did Alice always have her radar focused on me? I was about to ask her the very question when she stated,

"Not usually, but I've been worried about you, Bella, and the visions are much clearer when you are distressed about something. But I don't think this is anything to worry about. Not at all."

She tapped her right temple once.

"Remember, I am apparently very experienced in the whole psychiatric thing."

I looked at her in horror, never having heard her joke about her recollection, or lack thereof, of her former human life.

She grinned largely at me, and I smiled a small, cautious grin back at her. Her fingers danced across her legs, and she jingled her foot over and over again against the ground. She seemed even more fidgety and chipper than normal.

"Well," trying to answer her last question, "I've thought about it a bit in my head, but I haven't set anything down on paper. I tried a few times, but I can't just trivialize Edward into a list of pros and cons. I'm not sure my mind can work that way when it comes to him."

And the words that came out of Alice's twitching mouth would permeate my thoughts for the next few days.

"Bella," she said quietly, "we can't love something if we refuse to take all of that something in, the good _and_ the bad. Otherwise, it's all a façade. Loving a perfect something that doesn't exist isn't loving that something at all."


	15. Potatoed Noses and Physical Trepidations

**~*~ Author's Note~*~**

Sorry for taking so long to update… finals are on the brink of kicking my butt. Due to this, I will be updating at least once a week. Maybe more, but no promises.

Oh, and next chapter, mucho Edward/Bella awkwardness. Hoorah

Thanks for reading, and please, please with cream puffs on top, push that review button!

******************************************************************

**~*~ Mashed Potatoed Noses and Physical Trepidations~*~**

My front teeth sunk into the hard plastic of the pen top, as I furrowed my brow over the worn piece of paper in front of me.

_What Frustrates Me About Edward_

The scribbled title glared up at me, and I looked at the words. "What frustrates me is having to make this damned list," I thought to myself in my head. I cramped over the steering wheel, glancing a look at the time. I was supposed to be in my meeting with Dr. Blomquest in less than ten minutes.

Finally, and with much hesitation, my pen dashed quickly across the page. I stuffed the list into my backpack, slung the bag over my back, and made my way up to the steel doors.

*************************************************************

The past week and a half had crept by. Mike had returned to the usual lunch table without Tyler. Without the stinging glances from Lauren or the guilty sunken feeling from Jessica, and my newly re-instated friend at my side, I was able to sit back down in the cafeteria and try to choke down some of my food.

One of the only consolations to taking time to figure out my feelings towards Edward had been being able to spend time with Alice. I had never noticed how, so often in the past, my time with Alice alone was based on Edward's absence.

"What?" Alice had asked me after I raised an eyebrow at her after she had insisted that I start on the list.

"Well," I started, "that just seems a little deep, doesn't it?" I had never heard Alice give such an in-depth analysis before. I was much more used to the bubbly and airy personality that so belonged to her.

Alice smiled slightly, flicking a stray piece of hair out of my eye.

My stomach dropped slightly as the cold touch brought back memories of his fingers laced throughout my tangled tresses.

"I had to accept a lot of things about Jasper's past. I haven't tried to forget it, and have never asked him to change anything for me."

"But what about-" I tried to begin the pertinent question. She put her hand up to me before I could get it all out.

"He decided to move to a more… vegetarian diet to live with the rest of our family. I would have stayed with him either way. I may not like everything that makes up Jasper, but without one of those little things, he might not be the person he is now."

"I guess so."

She had given me so much to think about. My mind whirled around all of the times that I simply accepted Edward's bloodlust, cutting him off every time he tried to explain the dangers to me. Maybe if I had allowed him to express his concerns to me, he wouldn't have felt the need to shelter me so much.

That was the last time Alice mentioned the list or Edward at all. He hadn't shown back up to school. I hated the way the nerves built up through my system in the parking lot, only to find it devoid of any silver Volvo.

And how the desk next to me in English was vacant.

And how I had begun to loathe Mike, only because he seemed the main reason that Edward wasn't gliding through the halls.

Alice had helped me through each day, making sure to be by my side through the hallways in between classes, and always walking with me through the lunch line, picking up her own meal that would be discarded and untouched.

And, after trying yet again to ask me out on another date, Mike's mashed potatoes mysteriously ended up right on top of his nose splint in a gravy mushed mess. Alice had sworn that he was just a careless eater.

I, on the other hand, knew how fast a vampire could move.

********************************************************

"Erm," I cleared my throat, trying to smooth the crumpled paper I was clutching in my hands.

"Go on, Bella. I'm glad you were able to finish that part of the list, and this will help me to better understand where you're coming from."

I had already gone over the many amazing qualities that made me fall in love with Edward. From his mental prowess, to his chivalry, to the way he made my heart beat extraordinarily fast, I had babbled on throughout most of the meeting.

Part in due to the fact that I wasn't sure that if given an unlimited amount of time, I could stop talking about the things that made me love him. Part in due to the fact that I was putting off getting to the other side of the list.

I took a deep breath, wanting to disappear right into the floor. This was beyond uncomfortable.

"I guess… well… sometimes he is a little overprotective of me, but I see where he's coming from. He worries about me so much, and wants to make sure that I am okay."

I blinked furiously, trying to hide the tell-tale blush creeping throughout my visage.

"Would you like to tell me a specific example?" She attempted to prod me on.

My throat closed as I thought of all the times that Edward had hidden things, certain facts, from me, not wanting to disclose anything that might cause me harm. Nothing of which I could tell the psychologist without sounding rather insane.

I shook my head.

"That's fine, Bella. Anything else on the list?"

There was only one more, and my face, which had flushed pink, now shown crimson. I could feel the heat radiating off of my ears.

"Hewon'tdoanythingphysicalwithme." I blurted out, hurriedly fast.

"I'm sorry, dear?"

"He… well, we… I mean… physically… we can't… he won't…"

"Ah," she said, almost in a slightly condescending tone, "I see."

I had a feeling she did _not_ see. I couldn't very well contradict her and tell her the reason Edward wouldn't let anything go further with us was the fear that he might break my neck in the process.

"And you have talked to him directly about his… trepidation?"

"Well," I started, "I've tried to push his boundaries a little, but he always stops us before-"

"No, Bella, I mean, have you sat down and had an adult conversation about his fears?"

I blushed at the thought of talking to Edward about any of this. She seemed to gage my embarrassment, and said, with a flourish,

"If you feel you are mature enough to do more physical things, I would hope that you could be mature enough to talk about those very things with the person you wish to act on them with."

She gave a small glance at the clock, and put away her pen and notepad.

"I think," she said, rustling through her desk, "that you may be ready to confront this boy about your relationship, if you feel you are ready." With a smile and a nod, she ushered me out of the door.

*************************************************************

"What?" I shot at Alice. She had been grinning at me for the past few minutes.

"You _know_ what. And I think it's a great idea. He's picking me up in a few minutes. I thought maybe you could come over…"

"Alice, I'm not sure if that's such a good idea." I had decided, for the first time since laying down my restrictions, to talk to Edward about everything that I had been feeling, and everything I had discussed with Dr. Blomquest.

However, for the first time, I was terrified of facing him.

"It is!" she squealed, tapping the side of her head as she usually did when professing to have seen a favorable outcome. After spending more time with Alice one on one, I began to wonder if she may not use her precognitive disposition to better push forward the future she preferred.

"Ugh." I grunted. She took my hand, leading me out of the hallway and through the front doors. My hand shook in her cold one as she dragged me down the stairs and into the parking lot.

I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't sure if I could face him, talk to him, without melting like an ice cube into his arms.

My readiness seemed irrelevant to Alice, as she held firmly onto my hand. I stumbled slightly over my tennis shoes, as my eyes danced across the sleek silver car and the perfectly marbled arm flexing the brake.


	16. Piercing Pastries and Belly Sobbing

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Yay more than 100 reviews. That is like candy in a baby's cradle for me… wow, that sounds bad.

Yes, finals are still mucking against me. I promised I'd get one out before Wednesday, though, and I'm coming through for ya. I think I'll have another chapter posted before Saturday…

If my lit. professor magically changes from a troll into a unicorn.

Twilight… t'isn't mine.

**~*~Piercing Pastries and Belly Sobbing~*~**

My nostrils tingled with the familiar rose-permeated floral scent as my arms wrapped around the hard, cold ones sheltered against mine by their loosely slung satin. Eggshell colored fabric slipped up and over the dark green corduroy of my jacket, enveloping me in a motherly embrace.

A chilled set of painted lips set themselves upon my brow.

"Oh, Bella. We all missed you so much." Esme's eyes crinkled at the edges as she chauffeured me across the threshold of the house of which I had vandalized only a month beforehand. My gaze slid past the shards of glass now collected in a small heap at the edge of the high foyer wall.

"Are you hungry? I made you cookies. Here, let's go into the kitchen and I can get the plate of them for-"

Her warmly tense voice was cut off by Edward's velvety tenor.

"Esme," he said, placing a hand on her back, "let me take them upstairs. Bella and I need to have a few moments to ourselves."

She gave him a furtive smile, questioning him with her eyes, in which, if I had not been previously familiar to his quick movements, I would have missed his slight nod and wink in her direction. I briefly wondered what it was that had been going through Esme's mind at the moment.

Before I could acknowledge his absence, Edward was at my side with an ornate china plate filled with a small mound of crisp, warm chocolate chip cookies.

The almond-infused aroma from the freshly baked cookies mingled with the smell of dust from the shut-off house and the scent of honey radiating from Edward's locks overwhelmed my senses. I followed the smell up the staircase, briefly brushing the familiar, yet foreign, banister.

Edward's head cocked back and forth, looking from me to his doorway as I traipsed up each step, inching ever closer to his room. My eyes caught the glimmer in his, the way the illuminating light from the hallway struck through his irises, and my breath caught in my throat.

Before I could stop myself, my stomach clenched as if I was plummeting downwards on a roller coaster and my hands slid out to catch myself before falling on my face.

My nose dangled two inches from the ground, fingers draping an inch away from the hardwood flooring. Two strong hands caught my ribcage before I made contact.

"Careful, love."

He breathed against my ear as I felt my heartbeat pick up its pace. Blushing furiously, I slightly nudged his hands from my waist, placing my palms flush to the ground and pushing myself up to my feet.

I could pick myself up, and I would show him that I could do it all by my lonesome, fragile human and all.

"Got it," I mumbled, stumbling back upright.

I heard him chuckle as he opened up his door. Briefly annoyed at my lack of balance and dependency on him to catch me, I plunked myself down on the suede couch I had curled up into myself on weeks ago and shoved a cookie into my mouth, my arms crossed stubbornly against my breast.

"Bella…" he said slowly, dragging out the syllables. He turned to his music, his right index finger caressing the metallic play button. An unfamiliar melancholic piano composition filled the room, attacking my ear drums.

"You need to talk to me."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't a demand. It wasn't a statement. It just… was.

His eyes slid over the smudged crumbs I knew littered my lips, and, licking the remnants off of my mouth, I pulled the ragged list of Dr. Blomquest's out of my jean pocket. I stared into his eyes as he implored me to begin, fingers tracing circles across my jeaned knee.

"Grwfph." I choked out, sharp pieces of pastry piercing the roof of my mouth. I could feel my cheeks flame crimson at the sound.

Cookie dough and eloquence seemingly do not mix.

***********************************************************

His arm had slightly relaxed on the clutch as I slid into the passenger seat.

"I'm in need of a snack," Alice quipped to me from outside of the Volvo, "See you back at the house. Jasper and Carlisle said they'd be hunting, so I'll go track them down. You kids have fun."

She winked at me as I grimaced slightly at the awkwardness of the situation. Slamming the door, she was gone in a blink of the eye.

My eyes slid to my left as I chanced a glance at the boy I had tried to keep myself from.

"So… I guess Rosalie is going to be really excited to see me when I get back." The sarcasm cut through my tone like a knife.

I was taken back to the first few days in biology after meeting Edward. Making conversation with him had never been as trepid.

"Actually, Emmett and Rosalie decided to go on an extended honeymoon again. They're expecting to be out of town for awhile."

His eyes never faltered from his hand, which was now sliding the car into reverse.

"Oh."

It was the only thing that could escape my lips. His nostrils flared slightly, and I stared once more at his perfected hand grasping the steering wheel. It was clenching the metal tightly. I was suddenly aware of the affected rate of my heart.

"Sorry," I muttered.

We were cruising only ten miles over the speed limit as he turned his head towards mine.

"Whatever are you apologizing for?" His voice came out ragged and slightly pinched.

My finger fumbled for the button to roll down the window. I sighed as the electronic whirring hit my eardrums. The breeze from outside whipped my hair around my face.

"I know the scent must be hard for you. You're not used to it… anymore."

I could hear him gulp, and he looked to my window in appreciation. His eyes slid to mine, and I was met with a sad crooked smile, a remnant of the grin I had kept treasured in my dreams.

He didn't say a word. He only nodded his head, not daring to take another breath.

My own head spun with the hazy tangibility that this was not a dream. I would not wake up. I was with Edward.

And Edward was with me.

********************************************************

My hands trembled as I clutched onto the crumpled piece of paper like a buoy.

"So…" I said slowly, waiting for Edward's fists to unclench, "I need you to tell me everything. Everything that you're feeling. Everything about your past. I'm an adult; I'm mature. I can't keep letting you shield me from everything."

I said it as a mantra, not sure if I even believed my own voice.

His hand clenched the china plate that held the dessert that I had precariously put into my mouth minutes before. I saw a slight crack form against the intricate rose petal as he removed his hand from the china.

"I… Bella, I've tried to… I can't…"

His hand reached to the bridge of his nose, an act that I was well aware signified frustration.

I removed my arms from under themselves, and got up from the couch. I placed each finger slowly on his bicep, willing him to continue. I caught my voice in my throat, forcing it to remain calm.

"I need to know. If I'm going to be with you, I need to know everything that you're thinking. No more shields, no more covering up."

My brown eyes met his, and he looked at me so pleadingly that I wanted to melt into the floor and forget anything that I had asked him to tell me. But another part of me was resolved, and knew that we needed this. In order for us to be… well, "us"… we needed this.

His Adam's apple bobbed back and forth. He clenched his hands between his own, before finally raising his perfected face towards mine.

"I… I've killed people. I know you know that, and I know I've told you in what context I took their lives. It doesn't make it right… it doesn't make it better. I am a murderer."

Bile rose from my stomach into my esophagus as I let go of his arm, ready to defend him from himself.

"I know that. But you-"

"No. Bella, if you wanted to hear this… then no excuses." His voice broke yet again.

"I've drained men of their lives. I drank their blood. I am a parasite by nature. Having heard their mindset didn't mean that they were going to set their ideas in motion. For a long time I thought I was ridding others of the men I killed… but I have been just as much a danger. I have no excuse. And you need to realize that. I don't expect you to accept it, but please try to realize it."

I had already processed this information. I had already said to myself that I would love him irrevocably. But I was beginning to see the skewed difference between the surrogate life he had adopted for himself with Esme and her cookies, and the life that he had forged on his own.

"I understand," my voice said shakily, "and I'm not disregarding what has happened. I'm accepting it."

We stood in silence for quite some time. His eyes swam with tears I knew he couldn't shed. He kneeled before me, crumpled up in a heap on the floor, his head resting at my stomach. For the first time in our relationship, I was holding him up, trying to save _him_ from falling.

My hands laced through his hair as he sobbed silently into my belly.

But human minds can only hold attention for so long, and when I knew that he would be alright if I pressed on, knew that he _needed_ me to press on, I asked the other pivotal question.

"And…well… physically?" My face grew even redder than it had ever been, and I could feel the heat radiating from my cheek onto his cold hand.

"I've thought about it…" His eyes darted away from me into the distance as he stood up gracefully from his previous crouch.

My trembling fingers grabbed onto his chiseled chin, as I turned his face to mine for the first time.

"And…?" I implored him.

He grinned slightly at me, raising his upper lip to the right of his face. His hand darted behind me as he opened the drawer in his nearby mahogany dresser. He slid a thick envelope into my hand.

"We'll need to work on it. Thoroughly. I'm not taking any chances with you, Bella."

He kissed me softly, his hard lips brushing against mine, and ushered me out of his room back through the front door of his house.

An hour later, sitting Indian-style on my bed with my bedroom window wide open, I slid my fingers across the seal of the envelope and pulled out the information inside.

A first class airline ticket. During Forks High spring break.

From Sea-Tac to Denali, Alaska.


	17. Extra Blankets and Crispy Filets

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

This chapter's pretty transitional. The next one is rife with Denali, Cullens, and a super twist. I'll try to get it out by Wednesday.

One more treacherous week, and finals are over. For my devoted readers, you've seen I've started a new fic, Breaking Edward… starring OCDward.

Never fear, I'll keep up with both. I found I can keep writing when I have a more serious one going with a lighter one. And there's nothing more blasphemous than an abandoned fanfic.

Thanks so much for the support and for R&Ring.

Twilight… about as much mine as Johnny Depp's nimble fingers. Damn.

**~*~Extra Blankets and Crispy Filets~*~**

I was wading through the deep forest, trying to find my way back to the meadow. All around me hushed voices seemed to be whispering in ominous threatening tones. I caught sight of something on fire, something burning. When I turned my head to see, a furious image caught my eyes.

Her hair whipped crimson and orange in the wind, her teeth bared and dripping with stinging venom. Her lips curled into a vicious smile, her cold tongue lapping between the crevices. Her pale face seemed distorted, so unlike the other vampires I knew.

She raised her hands towards me, her red eyes flashing brilliantly in the small light fluttering through the woods. Just as her long fingernails were about to brush against my throat, white marble turned on white marble, and I was left blinking at the sight of tumbling masses before me.

With a swipe and a grunt, the burning colored tresses went flying through the air, and all I felt were his arms against mine, his breath against my lips, his torso pressing into mine. He tasted of honey and love and sugar, and as he pressed into me, I begged him for more.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I woke up that morning with three extra blankets on me. I snuggled into the bottom layer, still smelling his scent lingering around me. He had come to me that night. I was pretty sure Dr. Blomquest wouldn't approve of the arrangement, but for some reason I felt if I had been unconscious then it didn't count.

It had taken me quite some time to fall asleep the night before. The ticket lay on my nightstand, and I had tried to grasp the concept of Edward and me spending an entire week, without interruptions, alone together.

Until I focused on the destination spot. I knew that we would be staying with Tanya. I was trying to trust Edward, to know that whatever he had in mind would be a good idea. But for the first time in my life, I had considered taking Alice up on her offer to make me over.

It was going to be tiring to try to even compare to the vampiric beauty that she possessed.

"He didn't choose her, he chose you. Before he even knew you." I tried to tell myself, willing myself to put my doubts away.

Getting through the week had been hard enough.

"Am I permitted to sit with you at lunch today, Bella?" His voice caressed my eardrums, and I felt my knees shake slightly as we walked down the hall together.

"It's your funeral," I muttered, mostly to myself. I was sure the looks from Lauren and Jessica would not be improved by Edward's return. And I was fairly certain Mike might scamper back to Tyler and the basketball table. Although I was beginning to consider that somewhat of a bonus.

He cocked an eyebrow at my statement, and I merely rolled my eyes, firmly taking his hand in mine, and ushering him into the cafeteria.

***********************************************************************

"So," I began, picking at the fish on my plate that I had fried minutes earlier, "spring break's coming up."

It was Thursday night, and I had made use of the extra fish fry Charlie had been hoarding in the refridgerator.

"Mmm," was all that came out of Charlie's mouth. He seemed very concentrated on the food in front of him.

I had a slight feeling that, even though Harry Clearwater's fish fry held a soft spot in Charlie's heart, he was much too preoccupied with it to be normal. He wouldn't meet my eyes, so I laid down my fork, clearing my throat and trying again.

"Well, I was thinking about taking a trip to Alaska… You see, I was invited-"

"Bella," he said, finally taking his eyes off of the fish and onto me, "if this has anything to do with the fact that… _that boy_…is back in town, you know both your mother and my opinion on that."

"I know it's been rough, but I've been working through everything just like I promised, and I was just thinking-"

I was cut off mid-sentence by a knock at the door. Charlie's eyebrows raised into his receding hairline, and I shrugged my shoulders. I knew if Edward was coming anywhere near the house, he most likely would be coming through the second story bedroom window, not through the front door. I felt I shouldn't mention that fact to Charlie.

Standing up from the kitchen chair and pressing it back against the hard flooring, I made my way to the door. I peered through the peep hole, but didn't see anyone there. My fingers grasped the doorknob, and my face broke into a grin when I looked down on my best friend.

"Hey Bella," she said, wrapping her arms around me, "thought I'd stop by. It seemed like an opportune time." I thought I saw her give me a slight wink, and she ushered herself through the house, yelling as she went.

"Charlie!"

Charlie's eyes lit up as he looked at Alice. His face split into a grin, as he pushed himself out of his seat.

"Alice, I was wondering when you'd stop by. We missed you around here. We were just eating dinner. Do you want me to make you up a plate?"

"Sure, that sounds great. I'm not barging in on anything am I?"

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at her statement. I had a feeling she knew fairly well the conversation that she had interrupted. I'd been equally annoyed at her for the past week. Neither her nor Edward would give me details about the trip to Denali.

"Surprises, Bella, all good surprises!" Alice had quipped in a sing-song voice that made me want to hug her and pinch her at the same time.

Ben and Angela had already left the table, leaving Edward, Alice, and me sitting alone. Mike had abandoned the table, looking warily at Edward and absentmindedly readjusting the bandage on his nose before stalking away.

"Edward, we promised, no more secrets… remember?" I mumbled to him at the lunch table. He smiled his crooked smile at me and glanced over at Alice. He chuckled out loud.

"Hello!" I said, waving my hand in between them, "I'm here, too. And I know what you're doing."

"Oh, Bella, please don't spoil my fun. I promise it'll be great. Pinky swear."

I merely shook my head and dug into my piece of pizza, shoving the pointed end to the back of my throat and causing my gag reflexes to act up.

The rest of the period ended with me red-faced and annoyed, Edward patting my back lightly, and Alice's eyes about to dance out of her head.

I watched as Alice placed a few piece of fish and some vegetables on her plate. We all sat down at the kitchen table, and Alice began to speak.

"I'm so excited for the weekend to come. I'm sure Bella has to be bouncing off the walls around here. You know she hasn't really been out of town in a while. And my extended family is just dying to meet her, too!"

I coughed into my meal at her slight of word on the usage of "dying". A pit that had been lodged in the back of my stomach came to the forefront once more. The whole week I had been pondering the significance of going to Denali, and could only assume that we would be staying with Tanya and her sisters.

A week of Edward and Alice seemed like a well-deserved vacation. A week of the woman who tried to seduce Edward to no end and was probably just as breathtaking as Rosalie seemed rather daunting.

"We actually hadn't discussed her-" Charlie started to speak.

"Oh!" Alice said, rather dramatically, palming her forehead, "Of course, she probably didn't have time to ask you yet. It would be so great if she could come. I'm looking forward to having some time with Bella to really catch up, you know, away from all the high school drama and everything."

I looked at Alice as she spoke to my father. Her eyes grew as wide as saucers, dancing seemingly with pleading dew. Her lips were pursed in a tight smile, and her whole body was shifted over the table. She looked as if she were about to combust.

"I'll have to ask her for some pointers on innocent manipulation some day," I thought darkly to myself. I could practically hear Charlie's defenses crack at the look on her face.

"Hmmmph," Charlie made an indecipherable noise as he swallowed another piece of fish, "I'd have to give her mother a call about it, but if you're going to be with her the whole time, I don't see how she could get into too much trouble."

Alice literally jumped out of her chair and throttled Charlie in a death-grip hug.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Charlie. You won't regret it, I promise!"

I looked from Charlie to Alice and back again as Alice re-sidled herself into the chair to my left.

"Bella, how many fish did you give me?"

Alice's plate was empty, and Charlie's was piled high with crispy filets.


	18. Sweaty Sweatshirts and Squirming Bodies

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Please don't shoot me. There was too much I have to do in Alaska to fit into one chapter. So, I've split it up into two right now, possibly three. Promise, promise, promise it'll be worth it!

Reviews are tasty, and I am hungry.

**~*~ Sweaty Sweatshirts and Squirming Bodies~*~**

I never thought I'd be someone with an odd phobia, but for some reason, I was vastly afraid of the cool blue painted door before me. My eyes slid to the ornate knocker, as a hand of the person I had come to begin to trust again wrapped itself around the metal.

There was a brief knock of wood on metal, a slight pause, and then a creak of the front door of the two story Victorian. I shuddered uncontrollably as the cold Alaska wind whipped my hair into my face.

A tinkling voice hit the fierce air,

"Ah, Edward and Alice. So nice of you to come by. It' s been so dull here without all the Cullens. Please, please, come in!"

I was still trying to swat my hair away from my eyes as I felt Edward's hand against my elbow.

We were following a gliding mane of ebony hair through the house. The warmth hit me suddenly, and I took a deep breath in as I tried to stop struggling with my tresses. My sneakers, however, had decided to take up where I left off, forging a fight with the ornate rug on the floor. If Edward's arm hadn't still been wrapped tightly around my arm, I would have fallen on my face.

Stumbling into the living room, I took my eyes from my treacherous feet and slid them upwards. I was face to face with three stunning women. The two on the left smiled, throwing interesting glances in my direction.

The one on the right took one piercing stare at me, and then disappeared at vampire speed out the front door.

Alice let out a small gasp. I turned my head towards her, and thought I caught a glimpse of her glazed eyes, but before I could truly be sure that she had seen something, seemingly to do with the absent vampire, she interrupted my inventory.

"Where are Eleazer and Carmen?" Alice asked the woman on the left, who had been gazing after the other who had vanished so quickly. Alice's voice seemed permeated with a strained happiness.

"On another honeymoon. I expect it was Emmett and Rosalie who gave Carmen the idea… and after you put an idea in Carmen's head, well, it's hard to refuse."

The one who spoke back to Alice was not the one she had addressed. It was the woman making to get up from the lone armchair, and with dawning recognition, her very presence made my heart clench in my ribcage.

Smooth, granite skin veiled the heart-shaped face of the vampire now standing right in front of me. The cupid's bow of her lips was upturned in a rather forced smile, her strawberry blonde tresses whirling in long, exaggerated curls around her shoulders.

She brushed a hand through the air to where the woman had left.

"Don't mind Irina. She's been having a rough time lately… her mate was taken from her."

The room was silent and the air thick.

"Ah, but we haven't been properly introduced, have we?" Her voice cut through the tension like a 1940s songbird starlet, her tone so full of seduction that I wanted to disappear into the floor. I was no match.

A hand shot out to me.

"Isabella, is it? I'm Tanya. You don't know how much I've heard about you. Welcome to Denali."

I took her cold hand begrudgingly into mine, shaking it softly and avoiding her gaze. This trip was proving to be everything that I had dreaded.

"Bella," I mumbled into my own sweaty, airplane flight voyaged, plain sweatshirt, "It's Bella."

*********************************

Burrowing into the comfort of feather down, I tried to mask the discontented feeling that had grown over me. The day hadn't been as terrible as I expected.

Alice chirped away at Kate's new ensemble. Apparently she had acquired it before it had even hit the Paris runway.

She also kept nudging my shoulder, tapping her forehead and winking at me. For some reason, her ever-present outlook made me more calm. This tactic worked almost as well as if Jasper were along for the trip, manipulating a blanket of ease around me.

Edward stayed close by my side as a slight commotion was made creating my dinner. Tanya, Kate, and Alice bobbed at blind speed from cabinet to stove, whipping up a creation of Alaskan halibut that would put shame to the fish I had served earlier on in the week.

Kate fluttered around Alice, asking her about the Cullen family and the difference in the weather as opposed to Alaska.

Irina was nowhere in sight. After her abrupt departure during our first meeting, I had seen neither hide nor hair of her.

Tanya stayed beautiful.

And not one hair on her head flitted out of place.

And her lips never seemed to grow dry, staying a plump burgundy.

And her eyes kept trailing from me to Edward and back again.

But she was being nice to me, trying to engage me in simple conversation throughout the night. And I tried so hard to fight back the bile that was choking my neck. I was feeling pangs of jealousy of which I had never felt before.

I had begun to wonder why Edward had brought me here in the first place. Meeting excruciatingly beautiful women who had wanted my boyfriend most likely before I had even been born was most definitely not on Dr. Blomquest's to-do list.

I ruffled and plumped my pillow vigorously. I tried, for the millionth time in the evening, to steady my breathing. I laid silently, wondering when Edward would finish catching up with Kate and Tanya. It was then that I heard their voices outside my door.

The voices were moving so hurriedly and quietly that I had to strain my ears to hear. Tanya's sultry, wet voice came through the crack in the door.

"I'm happy for you, Edward, truly happy. Surely you must know that. I only wonder why you've come to parade her around us. You must trust me and my coven greatly to allow us to be around such a mouthwatering thing."

I gulped into my throat. For some reason, I felt that Tanya might not have a problem with disposing of me that easily.

There was a length of silence, to which I could imagine Edward putting on his, "let's not treat Bella as a snack" face. Then a break.

"Of course I'm scared," he muttered.

Tanya must have thought something internally.

"But of what, my dear little Edward? You were just as scared around me, and I didn't see you trying to break through your celibate self to get to me."

"It's not the same," he huffed, and the anger that had been bubbling at Tanya's innuendo subsided slightly with the lulling tone of his voice.

"I… I love her. I love her so much, it feels like I can't contain it. Waiting over one hundred years for her to come into my life, and then throwing it all away. I thought she wouldn't come back to me. I thought she would never forgive me. And now, all she asks is a few simple things. I want to give everything to her, but I _am_ scared."

"Ah," I heard her lush voice crack through my senses, "Yes, I heard about your little excursion in South America. But Edward, you're jumping around the point."

After a few more seconds of silence, I heard Edward's intake of breath.

"So you've already guessed why I decided to see you?"

I was annoyed by his mind reading capabilities; not for the first time, and I was sure not for the last. Could they not just hold a decent conversation out loud? Especially when it involved something like this?

I clutched on to the comforter, willing my breathing to slow down again. I knew that Edward would know I was awake if I couldn't keep my heartbeat in check.

Tanya let out a small simpering sigh and stated, "I knew before you walked through the door. You are a man, Edward. If there's one thing I do pride myself on, it's knowing men. I thought that you might come to me eventually about the whole vampire and human thing, seeing as I'm quite the authority."

"Well, is it possible?"

Was what possible? I had been so drawn in by his voice that I had no idea what they were bantering on about.

"Of course it is. Probably easier than what my sisters and I do. The humans we bed don't exactly know our true… capabilities. But have you not talked to Carlisle about this?"

I furiously dug at the insides of my ears. If my hearing wasn't failing myself, Edward was trying to talk to Tanya about me… and him… and….

Oh.

I could feel my heart battering against my ribcage, trying to hop out and perform a nervous dance around my bedside. Biting my lip, I tried to regain my composure at least in the slightest.

"I haven't. I don't really know what to do. Before I left, I didn't think that it was an option for us, but when she asked me… well… I just need to do anything I can for- ugh."

He cut off his own sentence. I heard his shoulder knock against the wall, and could imagine him shaking himself from Tanya's thoughts. After a few more seconds of silence, he began tepidly,

"I can't believe I am actually saying this, but that might not be a bad idea."

Confused once more at their one-sided conversation, I waited for one of them to speak again.

I heard a small pair of hands clap themselves together.

"Tomorrow I'll give you all the pointers. Your Bella girl seems a little… wary of me. Why don't I pass on a few things to Alice so she can talk to her about it? She seems close with your sister."

Edward let out a sigh, seemingly of appreciation, "I'm sure she would like that as opposed to the alternative. Like I've told you, I am trying to change how I act when it comes to her. She should know everything if we're even going to attempt anything that she has in mind."

"Mmmm, this takes me back to the days when I still posed as a teenager. The squirming bodies in the crowd during the school sexual education talks were so entertaining. Worthless lecture, but entertaining reactions nonetheless."

A small draft hit my back, which I had positioned to face against the door. I tried to lay as still as possible, reminded of the days when I would feign sleep so that Charlie would have to carry me from the car back to my bed.

I was sure Charlie had know I was awake the entire time, and, to my chagrin, so was Edward.

"Eavesdropping going as planned?" he said huskily into my ear.

My whole body convulsed with the immediate and quick presence of his torso pressed against my back, his fingers lingering around my stomach.

"Very successful. Mission accomplished," I mumbled into my pillow. I was slightly embarrassed at being caught listening in on him and Tanya, and slightly nervous about the topic of conversation I was assumedly going to have with Alice in the near future.

Edward began to hum slightly beside my left ear, pulling the comforter around me and laying soft kisses on the back of my neck.

This had been the first conscious night that he had held me, and for all of the jealous pangs I had gone through during the day, it was well worth it.


	19. Sleepy Crumbles and Vampire Inventions

~*~ Author's Note ~*~

**Eesh, I procrastinated this one. Trust, dear readers, trust. Hopefully you like it, and I'll go way into detail about the end in the next chapter. Let's just say, Irina lost a mate and is a stickler for the rules…**

**~*~ Sleepy Crumbles and Vampire Inventions~*~**

My head smacked against the wooden headboard of the guest bedroom bed. Why the Denali clan had a spare room with a bed was a mystery to me, but anything involving Tanya and a bed didn't sit well with me.

She had been unexpectedly nice to me, however I still couldn't dispel the overpowering jealousy that consumed me each time she graced me with her presence. No matter how long ago, she had been interested in Edward, and that was enough to have any girl shaking in her boots.

"Gruumpfh," I mumbled into my pillow. My head was now throbbing as the bouncing of the bed continued.

"Wake up, Bella! Look, I got you donuts and tea and pancakes and waffles and-"

I cut her off, peering blearily up at the small black-haired figure hovering above my face. She was balancing two full trays of food on each hand. There was enough food to feed a small army.

"Where's Edward?" I asked, yawning as I sat up and stretching my arms above my head. Flakes molded themselves in the inner crease of my eye, sticking to my lashes. Last night had been the best, and worst, night of my life.

I woke up more than three times, my dreams taking over from the cool body pressed to my back. It would always start the same, Edward caressing every inch of me, lightly flicking his fingers across my open skin. When I would turn to get closer to him, I would find him alone. Everything disappeared around me, and I was left once more in the forest where he had left me.

Each time the dream turned sour, I would wake myself up from my shouting. Turning around, I would see a tortured Edward wiping away my spilt tears, kissing them off of my cheek with his stony lips. His eyes pierced mine with a present sadness, and I knew he was hurting as much as me.

"Edward went to have a little educational talk with Tanya. Seriously, you'd think after being around for a hundred years, he would've gotten around to asking some questions earlier. He is a pubescent seventeen year old at heart… well, I guess he's pubescent. You know, Carlisle had his doubts about his age before-"

I cut her off for a second time, swiping a chocolate donut off of the tray with one hand while disarming my eyes of sleepy crumbles with the other.

"Alice, I really don't want to talk about this."

She looked with wide eyes at me. I took a stubborn bite of the donut, sighing slightly as the chocolate frosting hit my palate.

"Don't you want this? I know you do!" she said, tapping the side of her head. That move was beginning to get under my fingernails.

"See? We can have official girl talk, like girl friends do," she continued, clasping her hands together. Her face was glowing, so full of anticipation, and she pursed her heart-shaped lips in a pout as I shoved the last bit of the donut into my mouth.

"Fine," I grumbled. I could already feel my face grow red, and she hadn't even started the humiliating conversation yet. I feared that this would be more awkward and uncomfortable than Renee attempting to explain to me the birds and the bees at the tender age of sixteen.

"Okay," she said, handing me another donut. I took it begrudgingly, waiting for her to begin.

"So, I don't know exactly far you two have gotten… I do try to shut off any visions of a sexual nature, especially when it concerns Edward," she shuddered slightly, and I pulled a face. I was surprised at how protective I had become of Edward and anything said negatively about him.

"but sex itself… that'll be a tricky one."

My mouth fell open, and the have masticated donut fell out of my teeth and onto the white bedspread. Blushing, I went to pick it up before it could stain the comforter, but it was already gone. My eyes lingered on a crumpled napkin on the side of the tray.

"I don't think, well, we're not even close to, that's just, I mean, haven't even done more than, well, kiss."

I was a mumbling, bumbling mess. Eventually I did want to have that sort of a relationship with Edward. I longed for it every time I was around him. But he was also my first love, and my first experience at any of this. My heart palpitated uncomfortably as I thought of shooting straight off from kissing to…

"What? He hasn't, you know, explored anything with you? At all?" Her eyebrow cocked to the side, as if she didn't believe what I was trying to tell her.

I shook my head back and forth, wondering when my face would combust into flames from the heat radiating off of it.

"He's always pulled away. Afraid of losing control."

Alice sighed, placing the trays between us on the bed and passing me a bit of waffle.

"We talked to Tanya and Kate a few hours ago. I don't know how much Edward's told you about the Denali clan, but they are what legends have made of the succubi, vampires who bed-"

"-humans." I finished for her, in between bites of the Belgian waffle. I had glanced across the phrase when I was first trying to figure out Edward's vampiric nature. They were creatures known to entice humans, sleeping with and feeding off of their prey. I shivered slightly as Tanya's sultry voice came to my mind.

"Yes, well, as you know, the Denali sisters are vegetarians like us, but… well… let's just say they still have their fun with the humans."

"They… well?" I couldn't believe it. Was it really even a possibility?

"Yep," she said, popping the 'p' between her lips. My eyes glazed over as I began to comprehend what this would mean for the future. Was I ready for that? Could I really ever let myself be that vulnerable? If for anyone, it would be for Edward.

"Look, there are a lot of complications. It's not an easy thing, and this is going to sound anything but sexy. Venom makes up all of our physical attributes. That you haven't passed out from kissing Edward is surprising for me. Even if he swallows most of the venom, there are always traces left, and- what now?"

She asked me. I had stopped eating the waffle, diverting my eyes to my clutched hands. I could feel my cheeks about to jump off of my face.

"Well, I have passed out a couple times, but I thought, well, I don't know, that I wasn't breathing right or…"

Alice began to giggle, and I became irritated yet again.

"No, no, Bella, that would probably be a side effect of the venom. Not breathing? You do have a nose, you know."

She kept giggling as I shot daggers at her from behind my now mutilated waffle.

"Not funny, Alice. Can we please just get this over with?" I had eaten too fast in trying to appease my nervous stomach, and was close to death by discomfort as it was.

"Okay, okay," she said, still clutching her stomach slightly, "Well, with certain… ah… excrements, we haven't really worked our way around that yet. You see, with Tanya and Kate its different. They have to be careful, but really there's not enough venom to do much damage. However, with male vampires, well, it'll be tricky, but I think we could get Carlisle to look into it."

Extreme mortification. If I was hearing Alice correctly, the surrogate father of the man I loved was going to be up all hours of the night trying to create some sort of venom-resistant contraceptive. What romantic thoughts had swam around in my brain were now quickly being killed off by the sheer outward ness of the situation.

"And Edward will probably handle a lot of the rest. It's mainly his end to work on, anyway. You know, controlling strength, and bloodlust. It won't be easy, like I said, and blood will be flowing extremely strong… most likely."

She surveyed me as I blushed yet again. I was sure I looked like a tomato.

The question that kept flowing into my mind was, "Am I ready for this? Can I ask him to go to the trouble of doing this for me?"

I squeaked out a small, "Don't know if I can do this," into Alice's pale face. She merely smiled at me and patted my head.

"No one expects you to be, but if you two know what you're doing, then when the time strikes, you won't have to pause for a trip to Alaska and a vampire inventing session with Carlisle. It'll just be easier this way."

"Personally, I find Carlisle's vampire inventing to be a little on the dull side anyway."

The voice hit my eardrum like a sweet piece of candy. Edward was lounging his back against the door frame, winking slightly at me as I got up off the bed and tried to crush him in a bear hug. Conversation over.

"Hey! You promised to give me a whole hour with Bella. You owe me!"

"I know, Alice, I know, but I figured you had gotten through the logistics, and didn't want her to be any more uncomfortable than-"

His voice stopped mid-sentence as his eyes shot between Alice and me. Alice's eyes held the slight glaze I thought I had seen when Irina, the third sister, hand ran out of the room last night.

"Oh, Alice, how could you not see this?!?" His voice was harsh and dangerous, and I caught a glimpse of the vampire he rarely let himself be. Muscles tensed in his biceps as he twisted the door frame, littering the floor with wooden pulp.

"I… I don't know! She just made up her mind. I thought, when she left… well, she wasn't sure at all. But now…"

Fear gripped my stomach. A picture of a beautifully furious face whipped around by hair as crimson as the eyes that were encapsulated by it made my breathing grow ragged. I was sure Victoria had come back for me.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

I stared at Edward, willing him to speak. His eyes softened as I reached up to touch his shoulder.

"We need to get you out of here right now. The Volturi know about you… you being human, and knowing what we are. We need to get back to Carlisle."


	20. DeFrench Quiches and Disappearing Bras

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Agh, so my sister surprised me with a Caribbean cruise! Promise you guys I'll update more frequently now... But it was awesome. And, just for being so patient... BAH, Edward and Bella may start playing some baseball.

Superbear: Like they even know what that means.

Browniechadowes: Ugh, rounding the bases, rounding the bases.

I don't own twilight, and I don't know how the hell to make a quiche.

**~*~ De-Frenchified Quiches and Disappearing Bras~*~**

"I really want to keep Bella away. Have her stay with Charlie. Maybe me and her could visit her mother in Florida."

I heard Edward's velvety voice direct itself at Carlisle. We had come back to the Cullen house, Esme grasping my body in a tight, cool hug. Emmett and Rosalie had relocated to the area on Edward's request. Emmett looked psyched. Rosalie looked pissed off.

"Edward, the Volturi know about her. Alice says she saw Irina go into great depths about her relationship with us. It may be best to keep her here."

I gulped at the thought of meeting the Vulturi. Edward had gone into better detail about them, and no matter how he tried to explain that they upheld the law, that law seemed to conclude me lying bloodless and dead as a vampiric feast.

For the first time since I had met Edward, I wanted to be as far away from Forks as possible.

"Bella," Alice's voice hit my eardrum, as the collective Cullen family turned towards me, "what do you think we should do?"

I was sure that my jaw had hit the floor. For the first time since I had stressed the fact that I wanted to be a part of each and every conversation, someone had asked my opinion.

"Well," I started slowly, grasping Edward's hand in mine, "I don't think we should try to fool the Volturi. I know I've already imposed on everyone too much..."

Edward growled as his gaze turned to Rosalie. I could only imagine what she'd been thinking in her mind.

"I don't really want to stay here, but I don't know what the Volturi will be expecting... I'm just at a loss. And Charlie will worry if I'm gone too long. Maybe I could stay with Renee in Florida... And you all could talk to them and tell them that I'm here but wouldn't say a word?"

My heart beat rapidly. I hoped that everyone would agree. The vegetarian Cullens were like family to me... Bloodsucking vampire guard who made up the generalization of horror books were not.

"Hmm, it may work. Aro's ability will be able to prove that none of us are trying to hoodwink them, and keeping Bella away from the Volturi may be the best way to go. Alice?" Carlisle inquired.

Her eyes were hazy, as if she were searching for an answer to a difficult question. Her face lit up after a few moments, and she nodded towards Edward and me.

"I think that may work. I'll need to go with you, too, I think. And, Edward, if you don't mind Jasper tagging along?"

Edward's face pulled into a tight look of concentration, as if outweighing the pros and cons of having Jasper along for the trip. After a few glances at Jasper, he nodded his head curtly, pulsing his hand in mine.

Alice's face split into a huge grin, as she pulled four tickets out of her back pocket.

"Alright, Bella, get on the phone with Charlie, because our plane leaves in three hours!"

*******************************************************

"Bella, Bella, Bella," Renee mumbled into my hair, smothering me in hugs and kisses, "I was so worried about you! And look at you, you've changed so much since Christmas! Here, take your stuff into your old room."

I turned to the threshold as I tried to hold onto the sleeve of Edward's shirt. Alice and Jasper had decided to check into a hotel before the sun came up, leaving Edward and me at my mother's house.

"Re- mom, this is Edward," I said, pulling him through the door and into the front room.

"Ah. Edward."

My mom's steely gaze never left him, although she bristled as he attempted to smile at her.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," and Edward's hand shot out to meet Renee's. She gave him a cold look, ignoring his hand, and said,

"I hear your adopted sister and brother are staying nearby. Why don't you make yourself comfortable and stay with them?"

I rolled my eyes, taking my mom's elbow and pushing her into the kitchen. I knew Edward would hear the resulting conversation, but I would give anything for him to stay at the house. For some reason, the fact that a band of imperial vampires were after me made me want him to stick around.

"Mo-om," I whined, drawing out the syllable, "What are you doing? When I first started seeing Edward you said it'd be fine if he stayed with you and Phil."

"Well, Bella, that was before he left you to wreck yourself only to pop back up months later. I really don't know if I feel comfortable having him stay here. Besides, he gives me an odd feeling. His aura is skewed."

"Oh, mom, what have you been reading now? I'm sure if you give him a chance you'll like him."

I didn't want to tell her how on her reading of his "aura" may be.

There was a brief pause between me and her, in which she fiddled with the magazine on the countertop of the kitchen. The main page read "You and Your Quiche: How to De-Frenchify Eggs".

"Alright," she sighed, "alright, I'll give him a chance. But he's staying in the guestroom, young lady, and that is that."

I rolled my eyes yet again, a habit I had begun to pick up from Edward, and made my way back into the living room.

"Edward, make yourself comfortable." My mom held a tense smile as she showed him to the extra bedroom just to the left of mine.

*****************************************************

"Are you okay, love?" The sultry voice murmured into my left ear. I clenched the familiar covers around me as I peered up into the face I had been deprived from seeing all day.

Renee had decided my trip would be a good way for us to get to know each other again, and as neither Edward nor Alice nor Jasper could step out into the Florida sun, I had acquiesced to her request.

"Better now," I mumbled, turning to the side and kissing his cheek. As my eyes met his, I drew a breath inside of me. His face held a look that I had never seen there before. It was intense and also a bit timid. For the two to be melded together at the same time made me confused.

"Edward?" I asked, wondering what may be wrong. My mind instinctively pulled towards the Volturi and I wondered if Alice had seen anything that may fare for the worse.

"Bella, why do you love me?"

The question rang in my ears, and my mouth dropped as Edward's fingers held a strand of my hair in his grip.

"What?"

"Why... Why do you love me?" The look on his face was tortured and confused.

I was confused as well. Didn't he know how utterly perfect he was for me? When he had returned, I had to spend time away from him to figure out who I was. Now that I could assert myself, and know what my goals and dreams actually were, it seemed that he was even more made for me than he was before he left.

"Well, you are completely selfless, loving, compassionate, caring... I mean, you allowed me time to find what I truly needed. You listen to me. You're interested in even the weirdest and mundane things that I like. You just... we... we should be together."

I ended my incessant ramblings with my lips a quarter of an inch away from his. Looking into his eyes, I saw a small hint of sadness. But as I looked closer, it seemed to dissipate, leaving me with an Edward who seemed relieved.

But the timidity was still there.

He pressed his cold, stony lips into mine, and I molded my mouth against him. After a few seconds, he pushed my face away from his and said,

"Bella, you need to trust me. Just don't do anything. Let me. It will be safer that way."

My heart was about to explode out of my ribcage. I awaited his lips on mine, and the contact was enough to form slight fireworks at the insides of my thighs.

For the first time since he kissed me only a few days before he left me, his lips plunged into mine with a greedy need of desperation. I felt the coolness against my heated flesh, and drew a sharp breath in as his tongue drew lines around the crease of my lips.

My mouth opened voluntarily, and his tongue entered, slightly grazing my teeth. He caressed the inside of my tongue with his, and I had to keep chanting, "breathe, Bella, breathe", to myself in order to keep from passing out.

As soon as it started, he began to pull away from me.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked, looking at me in a concerned way. In order to express my well-being, I pulled on his shirt, crushing his lips back into mine.

I felt his hands grip my waist and slowly travel up my back... under my sweatshirt. Well, that was new.

My back erupted in goosebumps and my heart began to race again. He moved his hands against the back of my bra, and looked into my eyes.

Perspiring for the both of us, my forehead touching his, I briefly nodded my head. My bra was off of me before I knew what was happening.

Without looking away from me for a second, Edward's hands trailed the sides of my small breasts. My face was glowing in blush as I wondered at their size and started to cradle myself in embarrassment at my exposure.

He kissed me softly on my forehead, and with determined hands skated across the under swell of my breasts. Back and forth his strong thumbs skimmed my sensitive flesh. I felt warm all around. I had never been touched like this before.

His lips were still on mine, and his hands explored each swell of my pubescent body. I gave a small gasp as his hands grew more rough.

Then it was gone. The touching was gone. His lips were gone. His presence was gone. He was in the corner of my old middle school bedroom.

"I... that was... I couldn't control anymore." He breathed out, spurting words in the only breath he could hold in his mouth. His face, split in a panged grin, was happy and torn at the same time.

"Me too," I said, my voice breathy. If this is what Tanya had encouraged, I would consider her my new friend.


	21. Groovy Wheels and Tearless Sorries

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Gah, I know. Don't hate me too much for taking so long to update. I decided to take two summer courses that just started up. Now that I have them sorted out, I really am going to try to update more often.

As a side note, there are probably only a good 5-6 chapters left to the story. Mucho action: werewolf, Volturi, Victoria, Denali, and Cullens to come. Oh hell ya, it'll all come together and make so much sense *claps hands* Too excited for some BAMF fight scenes.

Oh, and Aro tells me to tell you to please review, as he almost got a cameo in this chapter. Hooray and bon-bons for everyone!

Agh, long AN, but a P.S. This chapter is slightly depressing, but it's what I had been hoping Edward and Bella's reaction had been sort of like. Read if you're severely happy and nothing can get you down, or if you're already slitting your wrists and need to haggle up some more tears, lol.

**~*~Groovy Steering Wheels and Tearless Sorries~*~**

"Argh!" I gurgled blearily as I woke up to someone shaking my shoulders rapidly, making my teeth chatter together. Lifting my head out of my pillow enough to open my left eye, I stared into the darkness at the small figure in front of me.

The weight against my stomach lifted as Edward pulled away from my blanket-cocooned form. Bent boundaries or not, he had still insisted on making sure I was warm enough throughout the night.

"Alice!" he whispered harshly, "You're going to hurt her. What, in the name of God, are you doing here? It's five in the morning. Unless-" He cut himself off of his hurried, quiet lament.

Edward's face hovered inches away from the back of my head, and I propped myself on my elbow, turning to squint at his expression in the darkness of the room. He stared above my head, his eyes dilating slightly with each passing second.

"I'll hide her," he stated quietly and fiercely over the top of my head.

"You can't do that. You know their strength, their power."

"Then we fight. Fight them off."

His words sent chills up and down my spine. His usually perfected voice was gritty, full of anger and hatred. I had only heard him use that voice once before. As it was right before a ravenous, sadistic vampire was about to kill me, I had a feeling Alice bore no good news.

My head was spinning with the information Edward had told me about the Volturi. Guards; governing vampires; keepers of the law. I had allowed Edward to consume me, to wrap himself back into my life, and in doing so, I had broken their only rule: Discretion and secrecy.

I tried to calm myself down as my heart began to palpitate within my chest cavity. I knew Edward and Alice would have already deciphered the shift in its beating, but the last thing I needed right now was to fall to pieces before I knew what was going on.

"You've been through worse, Bella," I told myself in my head, trying to take deep breaths and fighting the vomit that had begun its slow trail up my esophagus. "You lost him, and you got through it. You'll be okay. Everything will be okay."

As if he knew what was going through my mind, Edward pulled my disheveled hair in one long lock and tucked it over one of my shoulders, caressing the back of my neck slightly, slowly rubbing back and forth.

Edward was here. I was strong. We could do this. We could get through it, although I hadn't even a clue what "it" was.

After what seemed like an eternity, with Edward still cradling my neck with his hand and me forcing myself to breath in and out, I saw the shadowy form of Alice's head tilt slightly downward.

"We would lose, Edward. You know what I've seen. The vision that _will_ come to pass. The sooner you accept it, the better we can prepare for-"

Before I knew what was happening, the weight on the left side of the bed had lifted, and the touch that I longed for so much was gone. I blinked furiously into each corner of my old bedroom, wondering if I had merely awoken from a bad dream.

Then I saw that my bedroom window had been opened.

I flipped the covers off of me rapidly, shoving my sneakers onto my feet without bothering to unlace them. The heels of my feet dangled dangerously out from the back of them. Throwing a tee-shirt on over my undershirt, I opened my door quietly.

Within three steps, I promptly face-planted into the hallway carpet.

"Damn it!" I swore under my breath, flicking the precarious tennis shoes off, pushing myself off of the ground, and bending down to grab them in my right hand. At that time I was gratefully thankful that Renee was a sound sleeper. I could still hear her light snores from the nearby bedroom, and I continued my trek through the familiar house.

I held the front doorknob firmly, and pushed it out and away from me, hoping that it would choose not to creak. The hinges were in my favor, and I sighed deeply as I closed the door quietly and raced barefoot to the side of the house where my window was.

There was no one to be found.

My hair whipped around me as I turned full circle trying to find a clue to where Edward and Alice had disappeared to. I had begun to feel again as if I had mistaken the whole situation for a dream. At that moment, I would have given anything for it to be just that.

But as my head turned once more towards the pavement, I heard a thud and a sound of glass hitting rock. I spotted the rented car that Edward had purchased after our flight had landed a few feet down the road. My heart sank into the bottom of my stomach, and I ran full force to the vehicle.

I could vaguely make out two figures in the driver and passenger seats of the car. As I reached the back end, I flung out a hand and pulled forcefully on the door handle. The door flew out quickly, and I regained my footing as I threw myself into the back seat.

Blinking with all of my might, my eyes bugged out of my head from the scene in front of me. Edward was in the driver's seat and Alice in the passenger's, but both of them were leaning in together, their arms right above the middle console.

Edward's arms were flexed, his muscles protruding from his shoulder, down to his cocked elbow, to the clenched fists that held Alice's wrists. Alice's arms kept flailing, mere inches from Edward's face. Both turned away from each other and looked at me at the same time.

My heart threatened to burst, it was beating so fast. The look on the faces of the person I love and the person I consider my best friend were hauntingly animalistic. Their pupils took over the amber color in their eyes, making them seem hollow and fierce. Each of their mouths were gleaming, showing teeth as a dog might in a fight.

For those few, horrifying seconds, my human instincts were screaming at me to get out of the car and as far away as I could.

Whether by the expression I wore, or the way my arteries were pulsing copious amounts of blood into my body, both made contact with my eyes. Edward's hands dropped from Alice's. Alice whipped both of her hands through her spiky hair, looking down at her lap as she did so. Edward sunk back into his seat, facing the road before us.

Edward raised a shaky hand to the steering wheel. There were indentions all along the steel, and his fingers fit perfectly into the grooves. I took inventory on the rest of the car. Alice's seat was missing an armrest, the rearview mirror was nowhere to be seen, and I gasped as I noticed that the driver's window had been shattered.

"Are either of you going to tell me what the hell is going on?" The scene was ridiculous. I sat there looking like a tempestuous child, holding my sneakers in my right hand and wearing my over-worn sweats and an old Arizona State University tee of Phil's.

I waited, feeling my anger fill up each second I was in the dark. The days were gone where I had no decision over my fate. I wanted to know what I was up against, and I wanted to know while I still was alive to know it.

Alice fidgeted in her seat, looking to her left at Edward. He stared forward into the night, not even making the effort to blink. His jaw was clenched and his hands were still sliding over the grooves that his fingers had left moments earlier. I saw him give a slight nod. Without warning, he opened up the car door and stepped outside.

I watched his graceful figure slide into the darkness ahead.

"Bella," Alice began slowly, effortlessly hopping over the console and into the back seat with me, "I'm sorry you had to see that. Edward and I… we usually get along. You know, we're probably the closest in the family that aren't coupled together. It's just… well, with certain things…"

She let her voice carry off. She took my hands in hers and looked down at her lap again.

"What is it, Alice? Please, just tell me. I can't stand not knowing. I know it has something to do with me, and I have a right to know what's going on."

She looked me square in the eye and said, "Bella, the Volturi were really lenient. Well, as lenient as the Volturi can get. My visions kept changing up until an hour ago. Two of the three of the head Volturi, Caius and Marcus, I believe, were all up for killing you and ridding everyone of what they deemed "Edward's curious little problem."

She scowled to herself at reliving their words, and I couldn't help but smile slightly at Alice's indignation.

"But in the end, Carlisle was able to convince Aro that another path could be taken. It took a lot of persuading, but the others agreed in the end," she looked hesitantly out the window to the place where Edward had disappeared to.

So I wasn't going to die. I would be alright. I could be with Edward, and Charlie, and Renee, and get to go on with life, experience it fully as I should have been since I moved to Forks. The slight smile on my face grew as the knot in my stomach unfurled.

"The other path," she said, snapping me out of my current daydream of accepted applications to colleges in the northwest, embarking on my own able to begin my life with everything I held dear in it.

I looked at her with a startled expression. What could the Volturi do, if not either kill me or leave me be?

"is to change you."

Less than a year ago, before Edward left, I would have given anything to hear those words. I had begged for those words to come true. Wished beyond reason to stay forever with Edward.

I still wanted to stay with him forever, I knew that. But the lump in my throat cutting off my breathing, and the stinging tears in my eyes, seemed to contradict my feelings. I had not been prepared for forever to come so soon.

"When?" I squeaked out, begging my eyes not to give way to the torrent of tears they now held back.

"Carlisle was able to convince them to wait awhile. After graduation. He told them that it could be less conspicuous that way."

A month and a half. Six weeks. Forty-five days. No more Charlie. No more Renee. No more hopes of college, of English professors to abhor or finals to cram for, of growing older, of family, of anything else normal in a human life. All of it I would have to give up.

And I was willing to give it all up. I had made that choice when I had realized exactly what Edward Cullen was. Had made it when I kissed him, when I begged him to stay with me, when I forgave him and took him back.

I just hadn't realized that in order to be with him, I would have to say goodbye to my human self. In essence, I would have to die in order to stay alive.

It was then that a few tears escaped my lids, trickling slowly down and settling into the groove of my mouth. With a small creak of a door hinge, the person I most needed to be near me clutched me in his arms forcefully, more strongly than he had ever dared before.

He cradled me to his chest, pulling me into his lab and kissing the tears from my face.

"I won't let it happen. I promise you, Bella. Bella, I promise you that you won't have to make that choice."

Alice looked incredulously up at Edward and back to me. His fingers jerked against my arms, a reaction most likely to the visions in Alice's head.

And I thought back to everything I had been told about the Volturi. I thought of the wrath they could induce on the family that I had come to accept as my own. I thought of the safety of Charlie and the danger I would be putting him in if we decided to fight.

I looked into Alice's face, and a look so sure, so decisive was pouring out from her. If she knew this clearly, and from so long ago, it had to be so. I could make it easier, more predictable, planned.

As I chose deep within me, accepting the consequences and weighing the odds, I saw a glint in Alice's eye. She smiled slightly, then kissed the top of my forehead before leaving out the right side of the back of the car.

"I chose," I said in a faint whisper. I was aware that he knew my choice, but a part of me had to say it out loud. I waited for him to say something to me, to fight against me or to begrudgingly accept.

The only action that came from him was a slight shaking. It quivered through my back, which was still resting on his torso. He buried his face into the side of my hair, grabbing at my arms and enveloping me into him. Gasping breaths came out of him, and each stifling sob seemed more painful without being able to release a single tear.

"I'm sorry," he gasped shakily, lacing one of his hands through my hair as he shook. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"

He held me to him as we sat until the sun came up in the back of the torn rental car, as I shed enough tears to cover the both of us.


	22. Author's Note

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

So I'm not getting nearly the review responses that I got at the beginning of the story... I'm not one to abandon a ff, and I'm not one to leave people dangling who are reading it. I hate asking for reviews, but if I only get two for a chapter, I would much rather update by pm than keep updating publicly. I guess if you were the two that gave me a review and really want to know what happens, please pm me and I'll give you the rest of the story. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm about to take it off of .


	23. Diving Swans and Sparkling Baubles

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Yes, I had a really shitty day the last time I posted. I love all of my devoted readers, and after thinking a long time on it, will be posting up the rest of the story… reviews or no reviews, you guys deserve more from me that some whiny blubbering. For that, I really apologize. You guys are my life, and I really do appreciate you taking the time to read.

This chapter is slightly transitional, not a lot of action, until the end. But the next chapter is a whopper (and will probably be split into two chapters).

Another reason why I haven't posted on either of my stories in a while is I've been dealing with some legal issues. I was sexually assaulted at a club a few weeks ago, and am fighting alongside a few other girls to get the bastard rapist charged. For support to female rights and women's protection all over, please go to www (dot) takebackthenight (dot) org.

**~*~Diving Swans and Sparkling Baubles ~*~**

Edward disappeared with the sun, ushering me back to the front door of Renee and Phil's house. He planted a panged kiss on my lips, cold and unmoving, as he applied slight pressure to my hand.

"I'll come for you tonight. We need to leave as soon as possible. Please make the most of today as you can. It may be the last time…"

His words tapered off as he looked into my eyes, which were swimming in tears I didn't know I still could hold. My face was surely puffy and red from a night of crying, and I was surprised that any liquid could still be contained in them.

"I know," I squeaked out, grabbing the door handle, "I love you, you know. Always have. Always will."

My voice broke as I looked into the face that I had given everything up for. My family. My friends. My future. My life.

"As I do you. Forever," and with a small nod he turned his back on me, disappearing at lightening speed towards the rental car.

**************************************************

"Bella, honey, you have to let the deep hum come from the very recesses of your lower diaphragm."

Suppressing a hysteric giggle, I took in the completely ridiculous situation I was in. My mother and I, on two foam squishy mats in the middle of the living room, attempting to do the 'diving swan'. The irony in the yoga move was not lost on me.

I couldn't believe that I could find humor at all in the situation, but there I sat, trying to control my inner breathing, while a ministry of bloodthirsty vampires tended to seal my fate with the undead.

My life, or what I had left of it, felt surreal and impossible to grasp.

So I did only what I knew to do. I pulled my breath up into my body, and attempted the 'diving swan'… promptly rocking forward onto my face and giving the tip of my nose rug burn.

"Oh, Bella!" Renee shrieked, jumping from her mat and enveloping me into a hug. Her fragrance of incense and natural soaps bombarded my nostrils, and I blinked furiously trying to block my tears. I would miss that smell.

"I'm alright, mom," I mumbled, pulling myself from her arms and standing up, "but I don't think yoga's the best thing for me."

"No, honey, maybe not," she gave a small smile as she pulled the mats to her and rolled them up into one long tube.

She motioned to me to come into the kitchen, and I sat down at the table, wondering what she might have to say to me. In the past, one of Renee's talks would bring on a twinge of annoyance… even resentment… but for the first time in my life, I didn't care what she had to say, as long as I was able to talk to her.

"Honey, I wanted to talk to you about Edward."

"Oh." I stated bluntly. It was not what I had been expecting. I had told Renee and Phil when they woke up that Edward was having some family issues and needed some time alone. She had seemed unconcerned at the time, and I had wondered if she'd even been paying attention to what I had said.

"Look, hon, I know I haven't always been there for you, and I know it's been hard for you since you moved to Forks… but do you think it's really wise for you to be back with him after… well… after your spell earlier this semester?"

I blinked furiously yet again, not knowing how to respond. Renee was not usually all that perceptive about relationships.

"It's just," she continued, with my eyes locked stubbornly on my laced fingers, "well, you two are so entwined, so conjoined together. It's intense, Bella, almost to the point to where I don't really know where you two are in your relationship. I just want you to be careful. You act about a million years older than you really are, but remember… you're my baby, my one and only baby, and I just want you to be safe and happy."

My breathing had hitched and a lump formed in my throat. I forced back the tears and tried to plaster on a smile that would deter her from her prying. The last thing I wanted was for her to be worried about me. We only had so much time left.

"I am happy, mom. I really am. Edward… Edward really cares about me. I couldn't ask for anyone more loving or kind. He's, well, he and I are meant for each other."

My heart broke at the look on my mother's face. She had cracked a beaming smile, and small tears slipped from her eyes.

"I'm just not so sure I want to get rid of you yet. It seems like only yesterday I was bringing you back from the hospital…"

I gasped at her insinuation that I would be leaving her at all. Had she overheard anything from last night? And if she had, how the hell was she not confused or freaking out about it now?

"Mom, I don't know what you-"

"It's just, Bella, you usually know what you want, and I see it in your eyes that you've found it. It'll just take your mom a little time to adjust to the idea. But as long as you're happy, that's all I care about."

And I knew I would be happy with Edward. It was all I had ever hoped forever since he had come into my life.

But I felt the same stabbing pain I had felt when Edward left me in the woods as I closed the door on my mother, having said goodbye forever. I knew there was no going back.

***********************************************

Time has a funny way of speeding up when all you want to do is for it to go as slowly as possible. A precious week had gone by in a flash, me not changing my routine. This was partially for Charlie's sake, and partially for my own.

The Cullen's had wanted to have a family meeting, with me included, after our plane touched down. I couldn't handle it.

"Edward, I know we have to talk about it, but please give me a few weeks just to… just to be."

Alice had made a move to say something, but was silenced with a glare from Edward.

"Of course, Bella. Whatever you want."

It had been the large pink elephant in the room between the Cullens and me for the past week… and said elephant was not planning on scampering off any time soon.

"ARGH!" I screamed, flinching and tumbling off of my bed. I was swept up in cold arms before I could hit the floor. My heart was beating a million miles a minute. I had been wrapped up in one of my normal novels, trying to lose myself in the trivial issues of the Bennett's and the ever-troublesome Mr. Wickham.

"So sorry, love. I did say I'd be coming by," the sweet voice made my heart calm, and I playfully slapped at Edward's forearm.

"You about gave me a heart attack."

"Mmmm, actually, I'm fairly certain I would be able to hear one of those coming."

"Ha ha," I stated dryly. However, I stopped trying to be lighthearted at the look on Edward's face. It was determined and somehow distressed.

"Oh god, what is it? Is it about the Volturi? Are they coming sooner than we thought?"

I felt the blood drain out of my face as I looked into Edward's panic-stricken face.

"No. No, Bella, but there was something I was wanting to ask of you."

"Okay, but don't scare me like that, alright?"

I picked the discarded book off of my bed and attempted to dog-ear the worn page that I had stopped at, when a cool hand enveloped mine, forcing me to drop the book back down on the bed.

"Isabella Marie Swan," he said, almost in a whisper, his topaz eyes boring into mine.

I scoffed, "Ugh, you've never called me Isabella and I hope today was the first and the last. Are you sure you're okay?"

I felt him trying to contain himself from rolling his eyes. It was an occurrence that I had grown used to. His nose would sort of pinch up, and the side of his mouth would tweak slightly.

"Okay, then, _Bella_ Marie Swan,"

"Yes, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen?" I said, with a slight mocking to my tone. This had been my tactic in the past few days. Keep everything light and away from the serious realm, and I didn't feel like I would fall to pieces.

"Really, Bella, will you just listen to me for a second?" He sounded grumpy and put-out, so I felt as if I had pushed enough for today. I only hoped that his topic of conversation wouldn't reduce me to tears. I'd had enough crying to last me a lifetime… however short that may turn out to be.

"Sorry," I said in a small voice, paying attention to each change of feature, each movement that he made before me.

Very slowly and deliberately, he moved down to his knees, leaving me perched on the bed a foot above him.

"Would you do me the honor," and he reached into his pocket, "of being with me completely, for an eternity of a lifetime?"

My eyes caught the sparkling bauble perched in between his thumb and forefinger.

I stared at said bauble for a lengthy amount of time.

"I can't," I said in a small voice. And I knew it to be true. Why now? Why two weeks from my impending death? It made no sense, and I was never someone to hold stock in marriage, even if I had found the person that I was destined to spend an eternity with.

"You can't," he said back at me, still holding the ring in front of my face.

"No, I can't. Edward, I will love you and be with you forever, and maybe after… everything… we could do it, but not now."

"So," he said, his nostrils flaring slightly, "even though you're giving your mortal life up to be with me, you won't be my wife? I'm sorry, Bella, but I love you and I want to be with you, and only you, forever. I don't see why you think you can't."

"Really, Edward? I have two weeks left with Charlie. Two weeks left of the life I know right now. How do you think he'd take it? How do you think Renee would react? I do _not_ want to spend the last days of my life fighting with my parents. I have two weeks with them, Edward… two weeks. I have forever with you. Can't you just be happy with that for now?"

A part of me felt relieved at getting everything out to him, for not being afraid to express my worries, my concern. The larger part, however, wanted to take back what I had just said and cradle Edward in my arms. The look on his face as he pocketed the ring he had presented was calm and mask like.

"I won't stop asking," he said, looking straight into my eyes with a fury I had never seen there before.

I gulped, because I knew what he said was true.

"I won't stop saying no, not as long as it hurts the people I only have so much time with."

We glared at each other, my spine tingling with the intensity of his gaze.

"Bella Swan, I love you."

And ring, proposal, parents, and humanity were lost as soon as his lips touched mine.


	24. Toiling Trouble and Vampire Slayers

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Meh, I think this one is a little so-so, but there's a lot of information I have to get out. These next few chapters are rife with some action.

Super Bear: F-ing sweet.

Emmett: 'bout damn time.

Yes, well, everyone's looking forward to a little fighting and a little vamping, so I'll shut my trap.

Reviews are freaking lovely, dearhearts.

**~*~Toiling Trouble and Vampire Slayers ~*~**

"You know, I asked Alice where she'd stuck this pullover about ten times when we'd, well, when I-"

Edward's voice grew quiet, apparently not wanting to bring up the bruise that he had left when he had gone away.

"I kind of stole it from your house," I said, blushing slightly as I pulled the edges of the armholes over my thumbs, "I just needed to have something from you, and when I went into the house, I couldn't really help myself."

He touched the top of my covered hand with his, and fished into his jean pocket.

"Hey, I've been looking all over for that!" I exclaimed, my favorite scrunchy now sitting in the palm of his hand.

"Alice gave it to me, right before I came back to see you. I've grown accustomed to carrying it around with me. You know, it's not the only round thing I've stowed away that has to do with you…"

"Aren't you going to stay tonight?" I questioned Edward as his grip loosened off my wrist.

"Of course I am. Why do you ask?" His back was to me as he looked out of my bedroom window.

"Ummm, because you're a few feet away from me, and that's a few feet too far. Don't you want to lay down with me?"

"Mmmm, sure. Of course I will, Bella. Just lay down and give me a few minutes to sort out my thoughts." His back was still to me, but I could detect some sort of amusement coming from the tone of his voice.

Wrapping myself into my blankets and causing a great harrumphing noise, I mumbled into my pillow, "Don't see what the point was of being dragged to Denali if I'm getting even less of you than I was before."

"Did you say something, Bella?"

"Yes," I said, knowing full well that his ears were capable of hearing my diatribe as I twisted away from the figure that had its back to me, "goodnight."

Edward refused to have sex with me. Edward refused to touch me. I was lucky if I got a chaste kiss. I tried to tell myself it was because of his upbringing… until I did some late night research on the sexual escapades of teenagers in the late nineteen-tens slash nineteen twenties. Sure, they were chaste until marriage… but most of them got married at the age of sixteen.

I was not oblivious to Edward's true age. He'd been around for much longer than even my grandfather. I knew he tried to do things for what he thought was my benefit, but I also knew that his rejection of me had everything to do with _my_ rejection of his proposal.

**************************************************

_Click._

The weathered VHS tape slid into the VCR as I tried to get through one of my last English classes. Edward sat at my side, seemingly interested in a blank sheet of paper. I jumped slightly as he tore it out of its binding. My peripheral vision caught his hand flashing back and forth across the page.

A sharp edge caught the side of my right arm. Looking at him inquisitively, I slid the piece of paper to the front of my desk so I could read what he had written.

_Will you marry me?_

Stifling a giggle, I looked to my right involuntarily. My eyes were trapped within his, and I could feel myself be resolved into jell-o. He looked at me with such passion, with brute, raw adoration. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to give up my charade. I felt myself not caring what anyone in the whole world, even my parents and peers, would think of me.

Then I blinked. Twice. Hard.

Breaking contact, I fished into my backpack for a pen and scribbled underneath his gloriously looped writing,

_Don't you dare dazzle me into saying yes. I'm onto you._

Passing the note back to him fervently, I readjusted my gaze to the rolled out television in front of the class.

"Ahem. _Mi-ster_ Cullen," Mr. Stokes said, pausing the movie and making quite an emphasis on the "mister", "would you care telling me what the iconic phrase is that I have just pointed out to the class?"

Edward gave a small smile to the teacher. He then stated, "'Double, double, toil and trouble' is one of the many phrases often quoted from MacBeth. In modern day connotation, it usually adheres to mischievous actions on another person's part."

"Right," said the teacher, pushing play on the tape and seeming slightly put out.

"_You_ are trouble," I said in a scant whisper that I knew would be picked up by his ears.

He merely smiled at me, placing the note in his front pocket.

************************************************

"I made you another CD. I know there's not a particular reason, but I felt inspired."

Edward's lips lingered so close to mine as we lay side by side in my bed.

"Put it in the player for me?" I said, stifling a yawn, and only wanting sleep. Graduation was only two days away, and it had become almost impossible for me to be on any sort of sleep regimen. My mind had been too distracted.

"As you wish," he said, placing the disk in with a flourish while pushing the play button.

Crackling ensued, and I closed my eyes, waiting for his music to accost my ears. Instead of music, I was greeted with a more grainy version of the voice I craved.

"Bella, I love you more than my existence itself. All I can think about is you and me. You consume my every thought, my every breath. You are everything to me. Marry me?"

This was all too hard. He had proposed to me at every moment, every second, every breath that I wasn't expecting it… and he had no idea that each time I said no, I was breaking my own heart as much as his.

I reached across his body to hit the stop button on the player. I had heard the opening notes to my lullaby, and didn't think I could handle anything else being thrust at me.

"Edward," I said, turning back to him with pleading eyes.

"Bella," he retorted, lightly placing his hand on the side of my head.

"You know I can't. I just… can't put everyone through it. I'm already going to cause them pain as it is."

I wanted to cry, but I held back. This was exactly the type of behavior that had lead to our demise before. The resilient, new Bella within me held strong. I was surprised at her strength, as my legs had turned into putty.

"Let it go, and just be with me, please?"

I was begging, not only for my own sake, but for his as well. One more proposal, and I was sure I would cave.

"I am with you, for always... but I'm still not giving up."

Edward Cullen _was_ a stubborn creature. I just happened to have turned into one myself.

Because no matter how much he tried to dazzle me, no matter how times he popped up unexpectedly and asked me to marry him, I finally felt myself needing to protect the others that I loved.

The ones who I would be leaving in a week.

Because too much time had gone by. Graduation was approaching with the speed of a hurricane.

I had made Charlie all of his favorite meals, rotating them out each week to make sure he got his fill. It made me calm; it made him happy. Words just weren't required between us.

"Pass the tartar sauce, Bells?" he would grunt in his low voice.

"Here, dad," I would reply, passing the small jar over to him.

That was our way of saying I love you. You mean everything to me. I'll miss you when we're apart.

Then came the week of graduation. My stomach twisted into knots, as I knew I could no longer put off seeing the whole of the Cullen family. I dreaded it more than anything… not because it would settle my fate, but because I honestly felt as if I had been thrust upon them. I would soon be a troublesome newborn vampire.

Carlisle had made the decision to transform Edward, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett at their peak of mortal peril. Alice had always foreseen herself and Jasper in their family. I was the only one who was not physically in mortal danger. I was the only one who had chosen to get tied up in the whole affair.

Rosalie would detest me.

Jasper wouldn't understand.

Emmett would be unbearably happy for Edward, and unbearably troubled by Rosalie's reaction.

Alice would insist that she had foreseen it.

Edward was already tortured by the need for me to be changed.

I knew I was a burden on the family, and talking to each of them face to face made me sick to my stomach.

Besides the fact that it would be the nail in the proverbial coffin.

"Bella, it's time," Edward rubbed my back soothingly as he stood with me in the corner of my bedroom, propping open the window that I had blocked only a few months before.

"Okay," I said in an extremely small voice.

He flipped me onto his back, his cool hands enveloping mine as my arms cradled around his neck. At breaking speed he ran, my eyes closed as my windswept hair flipped furiously around me. I spit the strands out of my hair as I clutched onto the only person who I trusted to get me through all of this. Through the end of my life.

***************************************************

"We have more troubling news than you could ever know, Bella," Carlisle's baritone hit my ears as the collective Cullen family and I sat around their unused dinner table.

"How so?" I said, wondering whether I had involved either Charlie or Renee in my ordeal. If either one of their lives were in jeopardy because of me, I couldn't bear to think of the guilt that would reside in me after that.

Rosalie rolled her eyes to my question, while the other Cullen's looked at me with an inquisitorial air.

I instinctively grabbed for Edward's hand. What the hell was going on?

"I believe you know Jacob Black?"

I was caught off guard, not really knowing what relevance that had to do with anything. I had been preparing myself to duel Rosalie to the death, or something along those lines.

"Well, yeah, he fixed my truck when I first came to Forks. He's been a friend of the family for awhile, but Charlie's talked about him having problems with his dad for a bit now. I haven't seen him in a long time."

"He…" Carlisle seemed lost in thought, as if trying to say something as eloquently as possible, "He… and his people… have angered the Volturi as well. It does have something to do with Laurent and his extermination. Apparently Irina was well informed of their… interesting state."

I was lost. How the hell would Jacob Black be involved in any of this? He was only just sixteen, a kid that was having problems with his dad. I wondered how the vampires around me, let alone the Volturi, could even be bothered with him. I said as much to Carlisle.

"Bella, Jacob Black is not a human being. He is… he has… certain powers that some in his tribe possess. They are built to fight vampires. We," he gestured to Esme, Rosalie, and Edward, "dealt with his grandfather a few decades back. We promised not to kill humans, and they promised to keep our secret. It seems as if the gene has manifested."

I was in shock.

Complete and utter shock.

If I felt as if I were in a bizarre dream before, it was nothing compared to now. Normal, awkward Jacob Black: vampire slayer? It was almost laughable.

And that's what I did. I laughed.

"But," I said, trying to control my convulsions, "a teenage boy fighting off you guys? Fighting off Victoria? Fighting the Volturi? Just… just… how is that even possible? What, he'd come at you with his amazing zit-fighting skills or-"

"Bella," Edward's voice came from my right side, grabbing my hand and squeezing it slightly, "we have heard from the Vulturi and Irina. You were saved from Laurent by a pack of wolves, of beasts?"

"Well, yeah, I told you that, but-"

I was cut off by Carlisle, "That is what they are. They are shape-shifters. They fight off vampires who threaten mortal life. Jacob Black was among those who saved you from Laurent. Irina wants revenge on those who killed her mate. That includes you and the tribe that took him down. As for the Volturi, well, they feel that they pose a threat… maybe not as much as the lupine group in Europe, but, nevertheless…"

"But… but he's a_ child_," I reasoned. And it was absurd, however my mind flickered back to the beast who curled against me in the meadow, the one with the eyes that were so familiar. Could it have been Jacob?


	25. Jigsaw Puzzles and Shooting Daggers

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Aww, folks, it's coming close to the end. Yes, more build-up, but hopefully you all like. And let me just say, the next chapter I'm really excited for. Yay.

Thanks for all of your support and reviews. I appreciate and caress each and every one, oh so inappropriately.

**~*~Jigsaw Puzzles and Shooting Daggers~*~**

Was it truly possible that I should be up on an old rickety stage at this moment, grabbing for my little piece of paper that I had worked my whole life to receive? Was it possible that I should be crying joyfully into Jessica or Angela's shoulder as we reminisce of times past? Possible that I should be getting a congratulatory slap on the back from my father, and a wistful wave from my mother as I threw my graduation cap into the air?

Instead, I was quite impossibly surrounded by fear and catastrophe, holding desperately onto the one person who could make impending death the least bit bearable.

******************************************************

I had left the Cullen house, gripping onto Edward's neck, with a newly formed pit in my stomach. This whole mess could be attributed to me and my selfishness. If I had only tried harder to get over Edward when he left, I wouldn't have ventured into the meadow.

If I had made him listen and respect my wishes last year, I would be indestructible.

Either way, the choices I had made lead to this, and there was nothing I could do now to change it.

The last week of school passed by in a blur of sounds and outside joviality. I felt like I had been placed in a bubble, able to see what was going on around me, but not able to touch it. Part of me was relieved by my exclusion... However, a small part was left wanting.

I passed Jessica and Lauren down the hall on the way to gym, and wondered what it would have been like to have been able to keep the anticipation, the excitement of embarking on a new phase of my life. I had looked forward to graduating for so long, and now it was tainted in bittersweet regrets.

Blinking furiously, I pulled myself back out of that world, and into the one that I had made for myself; full of shape-shifters, vampires, and mortality.

"Bella, are you okay?" Edward's voice whispered into my ear as we walked hand in hand down the hallway.

I wanted to shout, to scream "No! No, I'm not okay! I've put countless people in danger and could die myself at any minute, and all I really want to do is curl up on my bed and read Pride and Prejudice."

But I didn't. I merely answered with a short "Mmm hmm," and tried to refocus on something, anything that would get me out of my own mind. It had become a dangerous place for me to stay.

***********************************************

I woke to tumultuous shaking. It was the night before graduation, or, as I blearily looked at the alarm clock that glowed 5:00, the morning of. I had stayed up late, restless from thoughts of the significance of the day and what it would entail.

"Bella? Bella, you need to come with us right now," Edward's voice shook at me, as I popped up out of my bed and took in his expression. His brow was pinched, his eyes lit wildly with haste. Alice stood by his side, pulling out clothes from my closet and throwing them at me.

"Wha-? What's going on?"

I wiped the sleepy residue from my eyes as I caught the clothes being hurtled at me.

"We need to get you to our house as fast as we possibly can."

"That still doesn't tell me what's going on," I said testily, slamming my legs into my jeans over my pajama bottoms and doing the same with my shirt.

"Everything... Everything is happening. Just, please Bella, come with us now."

Edward's hands shook furiously through his own hair as he pleaded with me.

Complete and total fear encompassed my heart. Had one of them been hurt? How would I ever live with myself if anything had happened to someone because of my stupid actions?

I stood up and grabbed instinctively onto Edward's back. Alice slid through the window first, hitting the ground with catlike grace. I felt the wind being knocked out of me as I sailed through the air, on the way to the Cullen house.

"Alice? What can you see?" Edward shouted at Alice as we sped along the familiar path.

"I told you, Edward, I can't see anything. I think it's a complication with the wolves. Any time they come into play, it's like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. I just can't figure it out."

Their pace seemed to pick up, and before I knew it I was placed, windswept and confused, on the front patio.

We made our way through the door, and Edward hurriedly asked a concerned Esme,

"Are they here yet? Did they agree to come?"

Esme merely hugged her assumed son, beckoning us into the sitting room on the right.

"I know, I know. I'm seeing that now. But Carlisle did have contact with them before. Are they very troubled?"

Once again I felt annoyed at the one-way conversation. This whole situation was more my fault than anyone else's, and I just wanted to know the extent of the damage I had caused.

I let out an audible gasp as we entered the room. A group of tanned, muscular men and one fierce-looking woman were standing in the far corner. Their muscles clenched with the addition of Edward and Alice. It took me nearly a minute to recognize one of the people as Jacob.

Carlisle stepped towards one of the biggest men, beckoning at us and saying,

"Sam, everyone is here and accounted for now. We need to know what exactly happened, and what we need to prepare for."

The large man, Sam, nodded curtly, his arms crossed over his chest. The group to the back of him wavered slightly in agreement.

In a wave of emotion, I was brought back to feeling broken and alone, like my soul had been ripped apart. Two strong arms picking me up off of the forest floor, cradling me to his chest. A deep voice speaking with Charlie as I festered in the gaping hole where my heart had been.

Jasper glanced at me with a tortured expression on his face, and I felt the stifling grief lift slightly, replaced by an uneasy calm. Sam's voice broke over me as I tried, with Jasper's help, to stop reliving that night in the woods.

"We have destroyed one of the golden-eyed vampires. Through scent we knew it was not a part of your clan, and I'm presuming from what you've told us, Carlisle, it was the one who alerted the Italian vampires of our existence. First and foremost, I wanted to express to you that although we have an agreement with you, it does not extend past your clan. Secondly, she seemed to be in the area in order to wait for the Italians to show. That was all I could get out of her before some in the pack couldn't control their instincts."

His voice was booming and diplomatic, full of power as he shot a furtive look behind his back to a rather surly guy, who looked defiantly back at him.

"They are on the brink of approaching, and I believe that they would be inclined to come here first."

He finished his exclamation as it webbed itself into the silent room.

Rosalie was the one to break the silence.

"Then we fight. We wait, and we fight, and once this is all over, we'll leave. You will go back to your lives, Bella will go back to hers, and we will never come back."

Emmett flinched at Rosalie's words, and I was struck by the desperation in them. Of all people, I wouldn't have though that she would be the one to even attempt to fight the Volturi due to my error.

I was also struck by the resounding edge of her statement, "Bella will go back to hers." Did she really not want me as a part of her life so much that she would risk a death sentence in order to get rid of me? Carlisle spoke into the silence.

"I do agree, Rosalie, that we wait. I am on certain terms with the Volturi. I may be able to negotiate with them," he said, then turning his gaze back to Sam, "but if it comes to a fight, we may be outnumbered. I do not want to presume that you or your pack would feel obligated to stay, however, I fear that if we fail, the Volturi will bypass us and move onto your people."

Sam's gaze was hard and inscrutable. His jaw clenched tightly, and I chanced a glance at Jacob, still willing myself to believe that he was the same awkward boy I had grown up with.

"We will stay and fight. We protect our people. These vampires are a threat to our families."

A few of the boys behind him smiled with anticipation, and Jacob gave a small smile and a wink at me. The girl rolled her eyes and shot daggers at me from across the room. I wryly thought that Rosalie and her would get along quite well.

************************************************

Three hours later a plan of attack was formed. My attention, however, was elsewhere as everyone sat down to negotiate what was to take place. 8 o'clock. I would be waking up right now. I would be taking a shower and cooking Charlie breakfast, worrying with each flip of an omelet that I didn't trip on the stage.

8 o'clock. A knock on the door.

My breathing hitched into my throat, as Edward ushered me up the stairs into his room. Esme followed behind us, and I tried to will myself to keep from vomiting. My stomach was in knots, and I felt like a trapped mouse.

"Love, just breath. I'm with you. I won't let anything happen to you."

That voice, the voice that I clinged to and needed, was the only thing keeping me upright. Edward placed his arms around me as he spun me to face him in the middle of his room, Esme closing the door behind us.

"Anything. Forever. Bella, you are everything to me."

I plunged my face into his chest, wanting so much to be strong, to not let my resolve crack. I breathed deeply in and out, until my ears perked at the creak of the front door and the sound of Carlisle strained contented voice.

"Ah, Aro, it's been too long, old friend."


	26. Dancing Dust and Innocent Devils

~*~ Author's Note ~*~

Agh, so this one took a long time, and is way longer than my other chapters, but I waited so long to update that I didn't feel like splitting it into two. Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I'll explain who was hurt and what happened to everyone in the next chapter. This won't be a cliffhanger story. ;)

~*~ Dancing Dust and Innocent Devils ~*~

The voice was silky smooth, tightened by the malice behind the words. My heart beat traitorously inside my ribcage as I craned my ear towards the crack in the door to hear the conversation.

"Ah, Aro, my old friend. Come in, come in! We hadn't been expecting you for a few days yet. I regret to say that we were hoping for that time to settle matters," Carlisle's voice answered in a forced tone of joviality.

"Mmmm, yes, well... We have been alerted to another issue in the area and thought that we might kill to birds with one stone, you might say. Funny how both birds seem to reside in your house at this very moment, is it not?"

Edward tensed at his phrasing, and I didn't even have the courage to protest as he ushered me further away from the door to the very corner of his room. His cold, steely fingers gripped me tighter than they ever had. I glanced briefly at Alice, who was still hovering protectively by the doorway.

"No matter what happens... No matter what you might think is happening... Please, Bella, listen to me. Do exactly what I tell you to do."

His voice was the ether to my rampant heart. I tried to process what he was telling me, knowing that he surely knew what was going on far better than myself. It took all of my strength to keep from shaking as I nodded my head against his lips.

"Edward..."

Alice's voice cracked as she looked furiously up at him from the doorway.

"Go."

His voice was clipped, his arms still pinning mine around my body.

"Go!" He screamed, his mouth still next to my ear, and Alice whipped out of the room with one panicked look back at me.

She hadn't closed the door on her way out, and the sounds resounding from downstairs rang in my ears.

Raised voices. Velvety sharpness rang through my eardrums.

"... and you've kept them here. Carlisle, we have ties that not many have known, but first you harbor a human... Tell her everything about us... Then you protect these hunters. What, God forsake me, should I do with you?!? They have killed two of our number thus far. You feel no remorse for that? No self-preservation?!?"

The voice of Aro hit like a punch to the stomach, and quite suddenly I felt as if I would be sick. Not only had I put myself and the Cullens in danger, but also Jacob Black and the people he had come with.

Everyone in danger because of me.

"Aro, I think you will see that they are not a threat as long as our treaty with them is upheld. They are here by invitation, and they have not harmed any of us, so I think that we can all-"

"Not. A. Threat."

The sheer venom dripping from Aro's voice made the back of my neck grow cold, and did not help the fact that I was trying to keep the room from spinning around me, trying to stay conscious and strong to the chaos I'd caused.

"_They_ have killed. _They _have alerted our coven. _They_ must pay."

He spat out each sentence with finality, and not moments before his last word was out, the snarling began.

I had heard it before, menacing and blood-curdling, rumbling with the potential to kill. Now multiplied, more than one voice growled loudly down the stairs. The scar on my arm from James' teeth twinged psychologically, and I waited with bated breath for the fighting to commence.

Then, piercing the very fiber of my courage, a foreign sound hit my ears. The sound of ripping, of tearing.

Ssshhhhzzzzpppp. Crrrrriiiiiiipppp. Swwwshhhh.

My mind pieced together a picture of ripping flesh, or whatever material it was that vampires were made of, and I felt hot tears creep down my cheeks as I pictured Emmett or Alice dismembered on the expensive hardwood flooring.

However, seconds later I was put at ease briefly by a collective howl from what was assumedly the shape-shifters, who had ripped through their clothes to change. I willed myself to believe that was the cause of the sound, rather than anything more sinister.

"Aro, you very well see you are outnumbered here. Please, let us sit down and talk about this. I'm sure we can come up with a reasonable-"

Carlisle's calm, yet tense, voice was cut off once again by the steely cold voice of Aro.

"_We_ are outnumbered? Why is it, dear friend, that I feel you don't consider yourself in the "we" that you speak of? Are you considering fighting us?"

His voice was broken off with a shrill chuckle, answered with a few other laughs, assumedly from the rest of the Volturi clan that had ventured with Aro.

"We will have to. The Quileutes and the Cullens have an understanding, and it is one of which I feel we will be obligated to protect."

As long as I had known him, Carlisle had always seemed compassionate and kind. A threatening Carlisle was about as likely to me as a pleasant Lauren. But in this moment, and with this statement, I felt a shiver run down my spine. For the first time, I was reminded of his age, his experience, his strength.

Then, with little warning, a sound like two boulders crashing together reached me. I felt the house shake, and the hanging light in Edward's room swayed back and forth with the impact. A few CD cases slid off of their place on the sleek shelves, bursting open and surrounding us in rolling silver disks.

The walls themselves began to shake, and dust poured out of the cracks now visible in the smooth plaster. I hung on to Edward's arms, burying my head in the crick of his neck. Each crash grew closer together, each one creating a friction in my very bones.

I was reminded of lightening storms in Arizona. At first, the thunder was brief and sporadic, but would, within a small amount of time, excel into a brilliant mess of booming jolts.

My nostrils were filled with the smell of dust, and I blinked furiously over Edward's shoulder to a room now seemingly dancing with particles that used to be attached to the Cullen household.

My heart beat even faster.

"No."

I pushed myself slightly away from Edward in order to see the look on his face. His muttering of the small word made my blood turn cold and my beat turn to nothing. He stated it with such despair, with no hope behind the word.

And his face was panicked and wild.

His eyes unfocused, he cocked his head to the doorway and yelled,

"God, no!"

I felt the tears stream down my cheeks, mingling with the residue from the destroyed walls. Batting my fingers furiously through their tracks, I pulled away fully, grabbing Edward by the arms as best as I could.

"What is it?!" I heard my disembodied voice scream to his face.

I saw Alice torn apart.

Jacob bloodied and dead.

Emmett no longer able to hold his smile.

Every terrible thing that I could imagine.

"Just... Just stay here! Stay here, Bella, and hide yourself," he yelled at me tersely as he raked his hands through his hair, "and don't come out. The Volturi are not concerned with you right now. Just stay. Stay, Bella!"

With that statement my heart ripped open.

An empty forest; a pair of foreign arms carrying me back to my dad, to Charlie; months of not knowing whether I could live or not without him.

"You stay," I said meekly.

It was a selfish request. I needed him with me, because if the picture of Alice helpless on the floor was enough to cause me a mental breakdown, it was nowhere in comparison to what I would feel if Edward had taken her place.

"I... I can't, Bella. My family is outnumbered. They may die. Alice has seen... Remarkably between the shape-shifters has seen... I need to go."

My throat buckled with his statement. It was true, and I had no right. This was all because of me in the first place, and if the family that I had come to love needed his protection, I would have to let go of my selfish tendencies and let Edward do what he needed to do.

"Okay."

Two syllables. The hardest two syllables that I had ever muttered in my life.

"I love you. You are _everything _to me. Please, just... Just stay," he breathed into the top of my head, placing a kiss on my forehead.

"I love you... So much it hurts," I was able to get out, before crushing his lips without abandon onto my own. My heart flip-flopped in my chest, and as I grabbed the hair on the nape of his neck, I wanted to never let go.

But I did.

With one last glance, he burst through the door, making sure to shut it on his way out, and I curled into myself on his cold floor.

************************************************

It may have been moments. It may have been hours. All I knew was that I was trying to keep what little sanity I had as I waited for the shaking destruction to stop.

The light had penetrated the window in Edward's room for awhile. It illuminated the upturned dust. Each speck danced around me, taunting me with their beauty. How could something so magical exist when the world as I had come to accept it was literally crashing down on me?

I was jolted out of my wonderment by the most terrifying sound I have ever, or will ever, heard. The voice was familiar, but the tone was anything but.

"Edward!"

A tiny gasp of a shriek from my best friend. Alice's voice reverberated around me, and I picked myself up off of the floor.

I was numb. Too numb to do anything but follow my feet. If she were screaming for him in that way, it could only mean one thing. I couldn't think of it. Instead, I only followed.

Right foot. Left foot. Down the stairs. Into the foyer.

I stepped up and over debris, the hardwood flooring cracked and bending in places that I had to scramble to get across them. The whole room was filled with dust, and I shielded my eyes to see anything.

"Umph," I swore slightly, catching myself on the wall. I had tripped on something and looked down to see what the object obstructing me had been. A single arm, glistening like diamonds in the window light, was pinned down by my foot.

I stifled a scream as I ran from the appendage.

"Oh God, oh God, just let me find him. Just make this all go away," I muttered to myself under my breath.

Bodies both human in nature and wolf in reality surrounded me. Their movements were so fast that I couldn't make out who was who, let alone if anyone I had come to love had been hurt. I scanned with my regrettably human eyes for any sign of recognition.

It was then that I caught sight of him. Edward, surrounded by blood, dust, and numerous body parts, twitching on the floor of the foyer where I had first met the Cullen family.

"Oh no. Oh no. Please, please!"

For the first time since I had met Edward Cullen, he looked like a young teenage boy. He was begging out to anyone, his eyes closed tight with pain. He seemed even younger than he was. Like a child calling out for his mother.

"Please! Bella!"

I advanced towards him, being triggered by the way he had plead my name. I wanted to make it all stop, make him stop hurting. Two steps before reaching him, however, I was greeted by a set of fiery red eyes.

She was a child. A sweet-faced, innocent child... With the eyes of the devil. Her mouth curled upwards on her right side as we locked eyes.

"So... You're what the fuss is all about? I was growing tired toying with him. Not a very strong mind, if I do say so myself. You might be a little more fun."

She bared her sharp teeth, the light bouncing off of them and her pale skin. I felt my knees click together and the room spin around me. Trying to catch my breath, I knew now was not the time to pass out.

Her eyes still blazed into mine, her brow now furrowed in concentration. After a few seconds, however, her crooked smile turned down, and she glared even more furiously at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward stir.

"What the hell are you, you little whore?!"

The explicative coming out of her mouth shocked me, and I merely stood, dazed in her presence. I wasn't quite sure what she had been trying to do, but apparently I had failed to comply.

"No matter," she said, giving a short wink over her shoulder to the still hunched Edward, "we can do this the old-fashioned way."

Her teeth gleamed at me, her eyes shining magnificently against the dust particles. I knew I should run, knew I should try to fight. But I was paralyzed. No matter what I tried to tell myself, I was rooted to the spot, ready to accept my fate. A small part of me thought that at least if I died, the fighting might end.

Steely, spindly fingers grabbed at my shoulder and the side of my face, and she tilted my head to the left, exposing my neck to her. I could feel her cool breath on my pathetically human flesh, and I closed my eyes, waiting for impact.

It never came.

At once, her grasp was knocked away by Edward, his teeth clamping onto her outstretched arm.

They flew around me in a blur. I could barely decipher what was going on. It was not until Edward was lying on the ground, face up, with the young vampire's arm twisting at his neck, that I knew he had lost.

With a panicked resolve, I looked down to the ground and grabbed for the sharpest object I could find. A shard of glass blinked up at me, and I cradled the piece in my right hand. Taking a deep breath, I slashed at the crook of my left arm, splashing blood onto the floor.

The girl that had been pinning Edward let her grip grow lax, her eyes dilating with what I assumed could only be hunger.

It was in this moment that I knew. Alice had seen. Edward had known. It was always meant to be, and I needed it on my terms.

"Edward, do it now," I said, as I looked into the eyes of the one I had decided to give up everything for. His panged expression caused my eyes to well up in tears, but I blinked them back furiously. It wasn't the time for him to hold me up; I had to hold the both of us together.

"Now."

My voice was full of resolve. I had made my decision. I had always wanted it to be him. Always needed it to be at my discretion. Given the fact that there were many non-vegetarian vampires in the room, one being mere feet away from me, I needed him to act.

His eyes left mine, and he grabbed for the young girl's hair. I cringed and closed my eyes as I heard the crack of her spine as he whipped her head full around. A soft thud on the floor alerted me to her fate, and I fluttered my eyes open once more.

"Bella, I can't..."

"Now."

"I... I can't... Not with the circumstances. Not with..."

"Now."

"Listen to me, Bella..."

"Damn it, Edward. Now!"

I screamed into his face, my eyes trapping his honey ones. He looked so indescribably torn, painful, and I'm sure my own eyes mirrored his.

"Now," I muttered again once more, briefly touching the lips that were so close to mine.

I saw the unshed tears dancing in his eyes as his cool hand lightly moved my hair away from my neck. With one kiss he whispered into my ear,

"I love you so much, Bella. Please, forgive me."

His lips touched the crick of my neck, and my spine exploded in goosebumps. I felt Edward breath in deeply, and I closed my eyes, ready for the pain. With one final embrace, I shed a tear as I felt his teeth sink into my soft flesh.


	27. Stray Ham Bones and SelfInflections

**~*~ Author's Note ~*~**

Blurrr... It's the end. Last chapter, everyone. I want to thank each person who gave reviews, because they really mean a lot to me. I'm sure some of you will be disappointed at the ending, but this is how I've always pictured it and this is how I need it to go. So you all are wonderful, lovely people for reading, and please feel free to check out my other story, Breaking Edward, if you need a browniechadowes fix.

**~*~ Stray Ham Bones and Self-Inflections~*~**

I watched between the thick leaves as the coffin was lowered slowly into the fresh ground. Edward gripped my arm lightly on my right side, while Jasper held onto my left with a sturdy grip.

My mind searched furiously for the source of the deja vu that I was feeling at the moment. After a few seconds, the weathered cover of "Tom Sawyer" swam to the forefront of my mind. I remembered the passage where Tom had staged his own death, peering through the church rafters while attending his own funeral.

But he was still alive. He would see his relatives again. He could watch the ceremony and then promptly go back to living.

The casket, now being covered with freshly shoveled dirt, was nearly empty... The contents of it being a few stray ham bones that Esme had bought at the local grocery.

I thought back to the retribution of my selfish actions, my need to cling onto the love I felt at the detriment of everyone around me.

Sam, the one who had found me, who had saved me, who with no agenda, had returned me home after Edward left. Dead.

Rosalie, fighting for me even though she felt no obligation or connection. Disfigured to my eye.

Jasper adding multiple new battle scars, slivers of silver branded by my selfishness.

Jacob, now holding the burden of being the leader, the "Alpha" of his clan due to Sam's demise.

All because of me.

The only consolation was the fact that the Volturi would leave Forks, the shape-shifters, and the Cullen clan, alone for the time being.

At least in fighting for me, the Cullens and the Quileutes had shown their strength. But even that fact didn't get rid of the horrible guilt that had placed itself on my shoulders.

The whole scene was foreign to me, as I stood over twenty feet away from my own grave.

I was lucid, and yet I was dead.

Charlie touched the slick wood of the coffin. I had never before seen him cry, yet he clung onto the edge of the rectangle like a lifeline, littering the smooth finish with bubbling tears.

My chest began to heave up and down, as I tried in vain to push up the tears that would never come again. When I was alive, crying always embarrassed me. I wished to suppress the tears as long as I could. Not being able to cry made me miss the emotional cleansing.

And I wished that I could at least match my father's pain.

It was then that the wind changed. I heard each titter of twigs, each sway of branches, and yet I could still, for the moment, keep my focus on the display in front of me.

I watched with regret as Jessica and Angela turned away from the grave, Angela's eyes puffy and swollen. I watched with torment as Renee was held up by Phil. She hadn't been able to look at the spectacle the whole time. She had merely stood with her face hidden in the crook of Phil's neck. I watched as Mike and Connor stared stonily at the hole in the ground.

The Blacks, Jacob's older sister wheeling their father as Jacob limped closely behind, moved to the front of the queue. Billy shook his head slightly, giving Jacob a knowing look, while Rebecca looked wistfully down at the grave.

But with the gust of wind, and as it whipped across my nose, I felt my nose wrinkle in protest at what was assumedly Jacob's scent, and my mouth fill with venom.

I thought I saw Jacob look straight at me, between the covered leaves of the nearby trees.

Sweet tantalizing scents overpowered his, floodeing my every sense, as I gulped down the pooling liquid in my mouth. If I had been alive, my heart would have pumped with adrenaline. Instead, my carnivorous instincts took first seat.

It was as if I had been stranded on a desert island, eating nothing but the fruit that grew off of the trees when, quite suddenly, someone waved a strawberry cheesecake in front of me. All I needed to do was consume.

I was programmed to consume.

Without hesitation, my body lurched forward. I heard my teeth clip against each other with sharp vigor as I prepared myself for the kill.

In a flash, my left arm was twirled around out of its socket and my body was thrown onto the ground of the secluded shrubbery. The movement did not deter me from my target. I smelled life, replenishment, everything that I needed.

I twitched, scratching and biting while I writhed on the ground. A horribly tense growl pierced the air, and it wasn't until I felt Edward's hand over my mouth that I realized the one screaming was me.

"Bella," he muttered, his mouth inches away from my ear, "Bella, try to remember who they are. Remember that it is your family, your friends. You don't want to hurt them. They are your mother and father, your peers."

Only Edward's soothing voice could calm the urge to feed from the crowd surrounding my grave. The pain of thirst scorched my throat, yet I was able to control myself enough to scramble back up to my feet.

"I need to see this," I gasped, turning my head to Jasper. He had, single-handedly, contained me as I struggled to get to the crowd of people. A part of me felt in awe of him for being able to control me at all.

Jasper begrudgingly obliged, and I strained my newly trained ears to hear my own eulogy.

I only comprehended pieces of it; caught up in the surreal atmosphere of the whole ordeal.

"Isabella Marie Swan... survived by parents... tragic car accident... too young to leave... condolences to the Church... in the name of the Father... next week's picnic will be at eleven, not twelve..."

And with that, my mere humanity was reduced to the date of a block party, my identity turned into a dozen poorly made potato salads.

**************************************************

The venom seared through my body, and for a good few minutes I wished that one of the Volturi would come across me and finish me off. I don't remember much after that, just the excruciating pain of the venom eating away at the blood in my veins.

I woke up dazed and confused, still lying where I had fallen. However, the floor was neither hard nor soft, and I blinked furiously in order to sort out my new senses.

The first thing I felt was a slight pressure on my right hand. Squinting while trying to adjust to the newfound clarity, I turned my head to the right to meet the intrusion. Edward's hand twitched in mine as I locked eyes with the person I had given my life for.

"Bella," he whispered, his face puckered in furious disappointment.

If one had looked in on the scene, they would think he was disappointed with me... But as I knew him, his way far more disappointed in himself.

"Edward," my voice tinkled back, the bell-like sound foreign to my ears. I gasped after the sound left my throat.

"Is everyone alright?"

Edward glanced to the ground, frowning while holding the bridge of his nose, the way he always had when either trying to repress information or keep from breaking down. He didn't reply.

"Edward?"

"Everyone is okay, although a fair amount of bites were inflicted. However, Rosalie will never look the same."

I thought of beautiful Rosalie, her pristine face coveted by all. I wondered what had been done to her, what she would look like now. I asked as much.

"It's really not as bad as it looks," said Edward slowly, obviously choosing his words carefully, "It's just that venomous bites to vampires leave marks, and it seems that she thought she could fight off Marcus, one of the main Volturi, on her own. She may not look much different to the human eye, but the scars litter her face."

I had nothing to say as I tried to picture a scarred Rosalie, and I couldn't help to think that it was all my fault.

"But," Edward continued, "Once Emmett spotted them fighting, he pulled Marcus off. They are taking an extended vacation together. Surprisingly, Rosalie seems somewhat... relieved, if that is even possible, what with her vanity."

But it made sense to me. She would never be tied down again by her looks. She would be free to just...well... be. Not that it would in any way help our non-existent friendship.

Edward reached out to me, eyes fluttering to mine and then back down to his hand. I gasped as his fingers touched mine, warm to the touch and quite soft. It didn't feel like Edward at all.

I'm sure he was thinking of the change as well, as the right of his mouth quickly twitched upward.

"And you had Alice run downstairs because..?" I asked, now following him into the newly renovated foyer. In fact, the whole house bore no sign that a struggle had even occurred.

"She can see the futures of the Volturi if their future is not entangled with the shape-shifters. She saw Aro give one of their young ones, Alec, the permission to use his power. Alec can stun people, freeze a room at his own will. We would have been left in the mercy of the Volturi if Alice hadn't taken him out before the fight began."

I gave an involuntary shudder, a habit of which my new family would later tell me are considered "human habits." My eyes filled with tears, and I wanted only to go to sleep and forget about everything that had happened. It was then that it dawned on me that I would never sleep again.

"Bella, I'm so terribly sorry. You must be confused and in pain. But what were you thinking? I told you to stay upstairs. All of this could have been avoided. I never wanted... Never assumed that I could..."

His voice cut off before I could answer his question, his golden pupils swimming in a sea of unshed tears. All I wanted to do was hold him forever. Just me and him. And I thought of how close I had come to losing him completely.

"She was going to kill you. She was hurting you."

Whatever the little demon was, she had caused Edward so much pain, and, given the chance to go back in time, I wouldn't have changed drawing blood in order to distract her.

"And," I said breathlessly, realizing Alice's power and what she had insisted would happen since she first met me, "Alice saw it. You know it was supposed to happen..." I faltered on the last sentence, grasping the hair on my scalp with my hands.

My words were cut off by an excruciating pain. It felt as if someone were inserting a knife into the back of my throat.

"But Goddamn it I need some water. I need water _now_!"

My throat was about to close up, the scratching pain searing against the back of my neck.

"You don't need water," Edward said, a finality in his tone.

My eyes fluttered shut as I realized the extent of my choice.

"I don't need blood either," I said to him decidedly, "All I need, all I've ever needed since that day in Biology, is you."

And it was true. I couldn't yet accept what I had become, all I could accept was that by some miraculous form of luck, Edward and I were still together; more together than we had ever been.

Edward touched the back of my neck with his hand, grabbing strongly at the hair on my nape, and he searched my eyes with longing I had never seen before.

"Bella, I'm so sorry. I love you so much."

I looked back at him, becoming enveloped in his panged expression, but not a single feeling of contempt or remorse crossed my senses. I had given up everything; my life, my family, my friends. The compromise was worth the reality. All my life, I had never been a true part of something, and for the first time, I knew I was where I belonged. I fit.

And when our lips touched, perfectly temperate and right, and as his teeth bit slightly down on my lower lip with want, I knew I had chosen right. This was the feeling I had been waiting for. This was the feeling I had struggled for.

Complete contentment.

In self-inflection, this was the person I was happy to evolve into, and Edward was the person destined to follow.


End file.
